Temporal echoes
by Amethyst trickster
Summary: After an apprentice time master appears to tell Donnie that there is a problem with the time stream he returns home to find a New York that he doesn't recognize, and more inexperienced versions of his brothers that don't recognize him. He will need all of his abilities and as many allies as he can get to out-pace Shredder's henchmen in the race to decide the fate of New York.
1. Chapter 1

It was cold.

The ground was hard and near frozen beneath Donnie's shell. The air nippy. Something was pricking his skin.

He opened his eyes. White speck flew at him. Hyperspace? No. Snow. It just looked like it was flying at him because he was lying on the ground.

He rolled on his plastron and took stock of his surroundings.

He knew the street. He just didn't know why he was lying in it. The ground was cold, and the parts of him that had been in contact with it were cold too. But the rest of him wasn't. What did that tell him?

It told him that he hadn't been here very long. In fact, If he had to guess, he'd say he had recently been someplace very warm and was dumped here just now.

A very disconcerting thought. He took stock of his inventory.

His Bo staff was still here. He also seemed to have a small computer strapped to his arm. Starting to cool against his lower arm in the crisp air. His sportsbag was wrapped around his arm.

He hoisted himself to his feet. The question of how he wound up like this would have to wait. For now he decided to do the same thing he did everytime some new oddity came to his doorstep.

Check on his family to see if they were ok.

He opened his sports bag and pulled out a T-phone. It looked like he had decided to pack several. Why had he felt such a precaution to be necessary? That seemed like something he'd feel the need to do If he knew he wasn't going to be home for a while.

This new information made his memory lapse even more distressing. He dialed the phone and frantically and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Something was wrong.

He flung his bag over his shoulder in preparation for making a dash for the nearest manhole when he caught something in the corner of his eye.

He spun to face it, pushing one foot behind him as a bracer so he couldn't be shoved backward and holding up his arms in a blocking position.

An average sized man of indeterminate age stood in front of Donnie. He was wearing a white costume that was as snow white as his hair and a, to Donnie's imagination, Insincere smile on his face.

"Hey Donnie, that was quite a ride, do you still remember me?"

"I... No.. Who are you?" Donnie asked, trying not to sound hostile.

The man wore an outfit that seemed familiar enough, but Donnie couldn't really place it until he noticed the hourglass hat under the man's arm.

"Are you an apprentice time master?"

"What? You don't know me? Well, I guess that 'd have to happen sometime. I'm Kairos."

Donnie's mind reached for any file he could connect to this information.

Kairos (n.) the perfect, delicate, crucial moment; the fleeting rightness of time and place that creates the opportune atmosphere for action, words, or movement; also the word for the weather. Greek in origin.

All the name told Donnie was that ether the guy's parents were very good at guessing good names, or he changed his name to suit his job. Either way it doesn't really tell him anything he could use to analyze the situation. He'd need to assess the situation further.

He opened his mouth to ask what happened to Rennet then changed his mind. Of course, there were other time apprentices. They had to run throughout all of time and they weren't immortal.

Or at least, he didn't think they were. He never really thought to ask.

"Why are you here?"

"I'm just here to give you a heads up that there's a distortion in the time stream. So you should keep your eye out for any time discrepancies until I can get this fixed."

"That could look like anything." Donnie replied.

"Yeah, but I'm sure I smart guy like you will be able to pin it. Want to come with me?"

"Uh, no thanks. I need to go check on my family, no one's picking up the phone."

the man's mouth tightened around the edges. "As you wish, I'll be in touch."

Then, as if an invisible hook had caught his waist and snatched him off-stage, Kairos flickered and disappeared.

Donnie readjusted the bag's straps against his shoulder and descended into the underground.

Heading toward the lair, he turned on the computer on his wrist and browsed the news feed.

No news items about strange activity this month. Or last month. Or the month before.

That can't be right. What happened to the Krang attack, the warehouse explosions? The garbage man? The attack of the Rat King?

Was this the work of a time discrepency?

Donnie was so encompassed in skimming articles that his surroundings started to blur out to vastest edge of his awareness.

They were brought back into sharp focus as something heavy and hard as a bag of bricks slammed Donnie off his feet and ground his face against the stone underneath.

"Jeez, fearless, what kind of ninja are you missing a sneak attack as obvious as that?"

"Raph get off me! I'm not Leo."

The weight lifted off his shell, "Aw, gimme a break Mikey, I had a fifty-fifty chance of guessing right.

"75-25. " Donnie corrected, "Where are the others?"

Raph stared at him. "Who are you?" He growled.

"I'm your brother. Are you drunk?" Donnie could smell a not-so-faint trace of alcohol clinging to his brother. Donnie always knew Raph would be the first of them to try some, probably under Casey's influence.

"Would you please try to sober up Raph, I think we - WOAH!"

He had to move fast to dodge the fist that flew past him and cracked the bricks behind him.

Donnie's breath hitched in his chest, Raph was serious.

"Raph? Why-"

He had to skip back twice to keep out of range as Raph tried to get in close, swinging his arm a few inches away from Donnie's face.

"I don't know what kind of dirty trick this is, but you stay away from my brothers!"

"What's gotten into you!" Donnie exclaimed, when Raph sobered up they really needed to set some ground rules about his drinking.

Not willing to stand still and wait until Raph had exhausted himself through boxing practice Donnie ran out of the tunnel into a room that connected many tunnels together, sliding into a shadow he pressed himself to the wall and tried to blend in. Raph went barreling past Donnie's hiding place and kept on going.

Donnie slide out of the shadow and frowned, that was very unpleasant.

He was struggling with the question of whether to tell master Splinter about Raph's behavior when Mikey voice started calling out above him.

"Raph! Raph! Hey Raaaaph!" Donnie looked up to see Mikey poking his head out of a large hole in the bricks above me, he spotted Donnie at the same time, a look of wonder appearing on his face as he saw his brother.

"Woah, who are you?"

Donnie's breath hitched in his chest and he began to back away from Mikey.

"Hey, wait! Don't go!"

Donnie turned and ran as fast as his feet could take him.

"Wait!" Mikey called after him. " I didn't mean to scare you!"

He ran until the world around him was a blur of brick wall and the pounding echo of footsteps.

He managed to step around any loose bricks and gravel, but he missed the puddle and slipped falling face first on the concrete.

Donnie stayed there for a minute, trying and failing to regain his composure,

A choking sob escaped him and he knew this was an exercise doomed to failure.

He lifted his head and set his chin against the floor.

A pair of shoes filled his vision.

"Kairos." Donnie pushed his scraped body onto its knees.

"Kairos, My brothers don't recognize me, what's going on?" Donnie pleaded.

"I'm afraid there's been a slight issue with temporal discrepancies. It's going to take me longer than I thought to fix it."

"Slight? Slight!? My family doesn't know who I am! That's not slight!"

"Well, you're just going to have to be patient, or come help me fix the problem." He held out a hand.

Donnie put his out to take it, about to say that he'd do anything to put things to right, when something stopped him.

A sensation of deja vu echoing against the reptilian part of his brain warning him against this.

'Lies.' it said, 'don't go off with this man.'

His hand hovered in the air a few more seconds before he snatched it back.

"I... I'm sorry, I'd like to help but... I think I just need to be alone for a bit.

He thought he caught a glimpse of something flicker through the other mans face. But that overly wide smile came back up again and he pulled back.

"No worries, we have all the time in the world, I'll keep in touch."

And just like that the man was gone.

Donnie watched the spot he had been standing for a moment, then pulled his knees to his chest and let it out as sobs wracked his body.

He didn't look up again until he felt a three fingered hand resting on his shoulder.

He looked up to see Mikey watching him with a concerned expression.

Dude? Are you ok?"

"I- yes." Donnie said awkwardly, stifling a sniff. What was he supposed to do? Unload everything on Mikey in one swoop? He wondered if Mikey, this Mikey, had ever been allowed out of the sewer.

"Then why are you so sad?"

"Well I-" He struggled to figure out a way to explain, not coming up with anything he settled for- "I met and angry turtle in the tunnels and I don't think he liked me."

"Oh, that must be my brother Rath, me and my other brother Leo are out looking for him, Leo was worried he'd decided to go topside."

Ah, so they weren't allowed out of the sewers then, these turtles might look like his brothers, but they were much more inexperienced.

Donnie sniffed and stood up. " I'm also sad because I lost my lab, I've got some thorny problems I'd like to fix, but I can't without my stuff." Donnie opened his arm computer, he wondered if he had any kraang schematics on it.

He was amazed at the depth of information on his tiny computer, it looked like he'd just hacked into a kraang computer and downloaded a large file before what all this is started, but he hadn't had time to unpack the file and go through it yet.

He unzipped the folder and opened up a search box, he scanned the file for places where he could get alien technology. Most of the places were Kraang warehouses he didn't expect to be in this dimension, but he found something else that caught his attention.

Could that really work?

He found some chalk in his bag. And drew the symbols on his screen on a wall over a puddle.

Then he pressed a button and the computer started whispering strange utterings.

The chalk marking glowed and the puddle rose over the hole and covered it making a doorway.

*GHAAASSSPP* "are you a wizard?" Mikey whispered.

"Um, not quite, and I've never done this before." He looked at Mikey shyly. "I don't suppose you'd like to uh, come with me? I've never been before."

"ARE YOU KIDDING? I've waited my whole life for something like this. Let's go!"

"Mikey wait for-"

"Hogwarts, here I come!" Mikey whooped before running into the wall.

"Me-" Donnie couldn't speak up fast enough to stop him from leaping into the portal. Donnie wondered if his Mikey would do something like that or if he had learned his lesson after being stuck in dimension x. Terrified that any hesitation could cause rookie Mikey to get stuck by himself in an alien dimension for months on end, Donnie grabbed his bag and shot in after him.

For a moment all he saw was white on all sides. Then he passed through to the other side and was faced with an earth-like dimension in some kind of market. Tents and booths obscured his vision.

"Woah." Mikey marveled. Looking around and around at all the strange aliens bustling among the booths. Donnie ignored them in favor of looking for signs of normalcy.

Thank heaven for small favors. It looked like they had landed in an earth-like dimension with an earth-like sky with a normal sun and an earth-like easily identify-ably horizon point (unlike dimension x) and earth-like gravity.

Donnie stomped the ground twice. This place even had earth-like dirt! Though it was bit dustier then the hard earth around April's farm.

"This place is off the hook! Where's this place been all my life." Mikey crowed.

And going by Mikey's awe at the new surroundings. Earth-like time physics too. This dimension just keeps getting better and better.

"Look! A booth selling tec! let's go Mikey!"

This place they entered seemed to be a large city made of stands and merchants and aliens.

"Oh my gosh, this place is off the hook." Mikey said.

"Potentate match number 13 begin!"

The sky turned into a large screen, two aliens standing in a coliseum of sorts bowed to each other.

"Begin!"

They charged and began a match of fast paced kung fu, no not kung fu. Some alien fighting styles he wasn't familiar with. He took hold of Mikey's wrist and dragged the younger turtle through the crowd behind him, Mikey followed absent-mindedly while keeping his attention on the screen above. "Uh, excuse me." He said a merchant." I'm new here. Can you tell me where I can buy tec?"

"In section 2? This is where all of the level two tec planet warps wind up. Only winning contestants can travel through to different sections and buy tec, It's to keep juvenile snots like you from buying things they shouldn't have and dragging it back home with them."

"Erm, ok, thanks ma'am." Donnie said, cringing back from her judgmental tone.

"Match concluded."

"Oh man did you see that? That was so cool!" Mikey said, picking up a random pamphlet someone had left on the ground.

"Yeah, it was really awesome." Donnie said. He dragged Mikey back to where they came through and they popped back out into the sewer."Ah man, did you have to bring us back here so soon? I wanted to see more."

"I need to go somewhere where I can print out some schematics or something that I can use to barter with. Then I guess I'll go back and enter the tournament."

"Oh my gosh! Are you a ninja! I'm a ninja! We have so much in common, uh, common, uh, what were you called again? I'm Mikey."

"Oh, I'm sorry. My name's Donatello."

*ghaaaaaassp* Mikey drew in a long raspy breath of amazement, then started dancing in place with one finger on his nose and another pointing eagerly at Don.

"What's the matter?" Donnie asked, confused by this strange ritual.

"You're in the same book I am."

"Book?"

"My Sensai's book, it's full of these artsy guys and me and my brothers' names are all in it, your name's there too."

"He has that book too, huh?" Donnie smiled. "I guess my dad must have had the same one."

"Ah man, We have so much in common, It's like we're kin. Oh, oh, come see me again before you go back, I want to come cheer you in the games."

"Really? I'd like that."

"Alright. Meet me back here in an hour, Kay."

"Alright, meet you then." Mikey called back already sprinting down the tunnels "Rath! HEY RAAAATHH! I"VE GOT SOMETHING TOTALLY AWSOME TO TELL YOU!" Donnie smiled, At the very least he could still count on Mikey's enthusiasm, even if the other turtle didn't remember him."

Don climbed out of the sewer and started toward a building where he knew he could find a printer, he made a self note to check his bag for coins, he just hoped no one would be there at this time of night.

*tweet ahe a hoot hoot* "I know that obnoxious horn." Donnie said, he moved into the center of the road and waited for the car headlight to land on him, as expected Casey poked his head out of the side and waved, less expected but no less welcome, April poked her head out of the other side. "April, Casey. what are you guys doing here?"

"Oh, thank god, he recognizes us." "Please tell me you remember the Krang invasion, no one else does."

"I remember, but I don't think my brothers do, they don't even remember me."

"What?" Casey and April exited the car. " They, don't remember you? How's that even possible?" I don't know, but I think it has something to do with the time sceptor."

"Time what?" Casey asked. Donnie gave them a very quick run down of the time guardians and what they did. "The only time apprentice I've met so far is Rennet, and the only other worker I know of is her mentor Lord simultaneous. This new guy is - I've never met him before. I think something might be off about him, but I can't be sure."

"What do we do next?"

"I think I downloaded a large data file before I lost my memory, Er... Do any of you remember how we wound up here?"

"Err..."

"Not really."

"Me either, but I found a way to remake my lab, I think, and I have this bag" He opened it. "Let's see, Shuriken, smoke bombs, A fake tooth? Oh, I remember that one- . " He popped the tooth into the gap in his mouth.

"Thinking of going into dentistry, Donnie?" Casey asked in a mocking tone.

"You don't need to fix your tooth Donnie, I think the gap suits you." April said.

"This is a very special fake tooth, you might be surprised how useful it is later." Donnie answered.

"Well, alright." April said with what he imagined was a hint of disappointment.

Hello? What's this?" He picked up an amulet and held it in front of himself.

"Wow. It's pretty, Can I see it."

"Uh, sure April." He handed her the amulet.

She put it on, Don smiled, It looked good on her. Though it was a bit large.

"Come one, Mikey's still as friendly as ever, and though he doesn't remember me he still wants to cheer me on in the games, Maybe we can find a way to explain this to the guys when we see them."

(scene break)

"Rath. LEOOOOO. YOU GUYS WON"T BELIEVE WHAT HA-" Mikey skidded to a stop at the sound of shouting."Guys?"

"You are so irresponsible!"

"Hey, You can't prove anything."

"Maybe not, but I think we both know what happened."

"Ugh! Would you guys stop fighting? I just had the most amazing day of my life and you guys are ruining my happy."

"Shut up Mikey!"

"Don't tell him to shut up, you shut up, you're the one who-"

"That's it! I can't take you guys anymore, I'm going to go hang out with my new friend, and- and- and maybe I won't come back, so there!"

"Oh great, now you got him going too."

"Don't make this worse Rath."

"UGH!" Mikey ran back out.

(scene break)

Donnie!" Donnie paused in surprise at the unexpected out burst. "Mikey, is that you?"

Mikey ran in through the tunnels.

"Yeah, sorry I couldn't convince my bro's to come cheer you on, they weren't in a listening mood- woah!"

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that." And he was, he knew that was usually code for they were fighting.

"Dude, you're friends with humans? I'm not even allowed to talk to them."

"Uh, don't worry, we're nice humans. And we know how to keep a secret."

"Yeah, we're cool."

Mikey looked at his pamphlet. " Check it out! You can gain greater access in fewer fights by entering an intermediate or an advanced tournament event instead of a beginning event. And there's gonna be a bunch of those going on over the next few days for teams of two. I should totally join you, then you can get to all of those places you wanna get faster."

"I would like to get my lab together as soon as possible, but I'm not sure about bringing you into it, you are a newbie." Donnie had to say that to remind himself as well as Mikey.

"I promise I won't slow you down, I might not get out much, but I have been training every day of my life, and if you met my Sensi you'd know just how much that really means."

He did, but he also knew that training only got you so far once in contact with the real world, the 'now complete with aliens' one anyway.

Mikey tried the puppy dog look, as the second youngest Don was immune to it but he smiled anyway. "Ok, we'll enter a few together, but if it looks dangerous, I'm sending you home."

"BOOYA ALL RIGHT."

(scene break)

"This is all your fault." Leo snapped

"Would you come off it, why is everything all my fault?" Raph retorted

"If you hadn't yelled at him, he wouldn't have run off into the sewers and we wouldn't be out here wondering where he is now."

"Well, if you hadn't- do you hear something?"

They poked their heads around the corner and gasped at the sight of Donnie drawing chalk on the wall across from them.

"Is that another Teenage mutant ninja turtle? I thought we were the only ones."

"Oh.. So that's the guy from before."

"What! You saw another turtle and didn't say anything?"

"Well, I uh-" Rath became very engrossed in memorizing the chalk drawings. "I was a little tipsy."

"So you DID go topside. I knew it."

"Don't be so judgmental, besides, we're-"

They went silent as the computer began its chant and the chalk glowed opening a portal.

Donnie, Mikey and the two humans walked through and it went blank.

"What... Was. That!"

Rath ran forward and put his hands on the wall. "They're gone."

"You mean we lost Mikey? We actually LOST Mikey. Oh no, oh nonononon. What are we going to tell Master Splinter? We can't go back with news like this, what if he gets hurt? What-"

Rath slapped him across the face. "Calm down! Cadet, we'll figure this out."

"HEY!" Leo went silent for a moment. "I always wanted to be the one to do that."

"I think I could draw the lines, but I didn't get that funky chant. " Raph said.

"I think I did, try writing them down."

Ralph picked up a bit of chalk that had snapped off Donnie's stick and drew the symbols again.

Leo chanted and the portal opened a new.

"We did it. We actually did it, let s go."

Their ears were assaultedby bustling noises as soon as they stepped through, anthromorphic rabbits walking down the road, oozing slime monsters eating muffins on benches, and a four armed woman manning some kind of information booth.

"Are these... Aliens?" Leo asked.

"I... Think maybe they are." Raph admitted.

Leo's eyes went wide. "Do you know what this means?"

"Leo, no."

"SPACE HEROES IS REAL!" Leo cried.

"Leo, please." Raph begged.

Leo threw himself on Raph, cover his eyes with and arm and bemoaning. "Space heroes are real, and Mikey tried to warn me! He tried to tell me and I sent him away."

"Leo please, people are staring."

Leo slid down Raph's front onto the ground and started to pound the ground with his fists.

Raph took a step back away from him, nearby passerby did the same.

"Oh Raph. We're terrible brothers." Leo cried.

"LAST BATTLE OF THE DAY. BEGIN."

The sky changed color, they glanced up to see a large screen.

"Donattelo and Michelangelo vs Tal and Pshord.

Leo's mouth fell open. Mikey?

He watched as the duo took out the other pair with a kind of flow that would make you think they'd been fighting together their entire lives, just how long had Mike known that other guy?

The fight concluded in their favor and they took their victory bow to their opponents as the screen went down.

"Did you see that" Leo asked, "Rath? Oh no, don't tell me you've gone too-"

He spotted Rath over at a booth signing something."Hey! What are you doing?"

"I'm signing us for the tournament."

"Why?"

"Because, fearless, If Mike and that other guy are in the tournament, then they'll probably be here a while. And if Mikey was serious about not coming back to stay at the lair, then he must be staying somewhere else, they probably have competitors dorms or something here, so that'll be where he's probably staying. If we join then we'll get sent to the dorms too, and that's where we'll find Mikey."

"Each section of the tournament has their own dorms, but potentates don't go there, they go to the potentates dorms. You have to win an event to become a competitor." The four armed woman informed them.

"And that was the last event of the day." Leo remembered.

"So? We'll just go get him tomorrow, now, uh, how are we going to tell master Splinter?"

"How ARE we going to tell master Splinter, as in, how are we going to get home!?"

"Um... Hadn't thought of that. Maybe Mikey knows?"

"Uh, we'll just have to find out where he went."

"Hmm. come on, let's go find out where we're sleeping."

Despite the sudden strangeness of it all they felt a thrill of excitement. Their first real fight was tomorrow.

(End chapter)

Yes, this tournament is a nexus homage. For those who came here from the 2012 crowd. The nexus tournament is an event from the 2003 version of tmnt. It started out as a three parter, then made a reappearance in the time ark. If you don't watch any other part of 2003 tmnt, I recommend watching the time sceptor ark, especially Same as it never was. Maybe watch the Battle Nexus episodes first so the time plot makes more sense.

Some people claim the time travel in sainw makes no sense. (Tiny spoiler) I think It makes perfect sense. Donnie went to the future, and the reason his older self was missing was because his younger self skipped to the future instead of growing up. You can't use time travel to skip forward in time to meet your future self for the same reason you can't use a cryogenic freezer to skip forward in time to meet your future self. You need a past self to stay behind and grow up.

End spoiler-

Don't worry- you don't need to have watched 2003 to understand this fic. Just accept the dimensional chalk portal as cannon and move on to the drama.


	2. The stadium

=========1==

Chapter 3

Potentate battle 1- begin!

Rath and Leo jumped into place, their opponents leaped onto stage too.

One was the size of an adult human and shaped like one, though they couldn't tell what he really looked like under his mask and clothes, the other looked like a featherless chicken with a mushroom shaped head.

"BWAHAHAH that thing thinks it can compete against us." Raph laughed.

" I kind of thought this'd be a bit harder." Leo remarked, before shoving Raph in the direction of the chicken, "Alright, you finish him off then join me against the other guy."

"Why do I get the chump job?" "cause' I'm the oldest."

Leo bowed and Raph grudgingly did the same.

"Alright, pip-squeak lets get this over with," Raph said, raising his fists.

The pink alien hit a button on the controller around its neck and some packages Rath didn't even notice on the field opened up and shot out machine parts.

The alien flew up and the parts constructed a metallic mount underneath. It landed on the robot and was covered by a see-through protective dome on the top.

Rath paused for a moment, then let a small "huh."

Leo approached the masked one pulling out his swords.

The Mask made a bunch of hand signs faster than Leo could see and suddenly copied himself into five clones.

"Damn."

On the other side of the nexus grounds, Donnie and Mikey entered their second competitor battle.

The arena was strange, instead of a flat surface there were a bunch of metal balls floating in mid air, Donnie leaped on one and had to run on it to keep from falling off.

"Seriously? This is the arena? We have to fight while Birling?"

"Whaaaat's Birling?" Mikey asked. Nearly falling off the first one he jumped on.

"It's a lumberjack game where you run on a spinning log," Donnie said. "And there's our opponents." He said, gesturing at the long stick-like aliens that appeared.

(scene break)

Leo tried to cut one copy only for it to slip out of range, forcing him to step off-line and evade another.

Rath leaped up and tried to pound the metal Goliath but just bounced off. It picked him up and threw him clear across the arena where he hit Leo, knocking the two of them into a wall.

(scene break)

"Whoa!" Donnie exclaimed. Almost falling off the ball yet again and he swung past his opponent.

"Dude! This is hard."

I know what you mea-a-n!" He stumbled over and was nearly flung back over Mikey.

Mikey sidestepped and Donnie grabbed one end of Mikey's nunchuck to steady himself.

The chain went taut and they both stood balancing on the still ball, countering each others weight with the chucks.

They smiled at each other and leaped three balls over. Using the chain to trip their opponent.

(scene break)

Alright big guy, let's do this!" Rath screamed, holding up his fists. The bot held up its arms, folding its hands back into its body it spat fire balls at Rath.

"Woah, hold on- THAT'S CHEATING" Rath screamed dodging.

(scene break)

Doubles Contest 3 BEGIN."

Donnie leaped from post to post collecting the gems scattered around the arena. He leaped onto a high rise and dart up it until he got to the end and came to a halt. There was another gem suspended from the ceiling. It would be difficult to bring it down with a projectile, and it was a bit far to jump.

"GANGWAY!" He leaped out of the way and Mikey barreled past him on a skateboard. He shot right off the end of the rise and past the gem, grabbing it out of the air as he did so.

(scene break)

Rath dodged the balls. " _I'm not getting anywhere with this."_ He thought in a panic. " _Leo's not going to let me live this down."_

Leo somersaulted backward until he was close to Rath and stepped into a fighting position, he waited until two approaching ninjas got into striking distance then hit them with his swords. A third one slipped between and slammed Leo down to the floor. The clones all swarmed over him.

"LEO!" Rath jumped on top of the bot and grabbed one of its arms, forcing it to point in the direction of Leo's attackers. The blast knocked all of the ninjas off.

The bot withdrew its cannon, folding it into itself and separating the folds into fingers. It grabbed Rath and slammed him to the floor.

He rolled up onto his feet and held his hands up as it balled its fingers into fists and tried to double punch him.

He felt the smack against his palms as he curled his hand over its fists, the force dragging him backward through the dirt.

His feet strained under the pressure as they were pushed back. Leo ran up behind him and, jumping onto his shoulders, swiped once at the dome to remove it and then knocked the alien off its perch with his sword hilt.

(scene break)

Donnie fixed up the aliens broken fountain machine, she rewarded him with a case filled with chemicals. Mikey sighed. This was taking forever. Donnie had fixed three machines and traded a half dozen schematics and Mike didn't understand any if the stuff he was getting.

"Come on Donnie, what's taking so long, we could be competing right now, or at least outside watching fights."

"Yeah, I'm with Mikey, this is Dullsville." Casey added.

"Just a minuet Mikey, then we'll go sign up for another match." April reassured

*siiiigh*

(scene break)

WOOOOAHH!" Raph screamed, running along his tiny part of the field. "SOMEBODY STOP THIS CRAZY THING!" He screamed.

Leo was doing marginally better. He wasn't confined to one ball anyway, but it didn't make fighting his opponents much easier. Since Rath couldn't figure out how to get off his ball, they'd both decided that Leo was the bigger threat and both of them were after him.

"Whoa." Leo jumped over a sword swipe and carried his jump too far, landing on Rath's shoulders.

"This isn't making things easier on me, Leo." Rath snapped. Both of their opponents -anthropomorphized rabbits- jumped on the ball in front of Rath, one on the others shoulders, mimicking the turtles pose. Leo put up his fists and the rabbit did the same. After a minute of fisticuffs, he managed to knock the rabbits down.

(scene break)

Mikey stood in line to sign up, sighing heavenly. Donnie was still fixing stuff and this line was longer than he'd thought it'd be, and the event wasn't even for another hour.

(scene break)

Rath and Leo stood staring out at the expanse before them. They'd gotten all of the other gems, But how were they supposed to get that one?"

(scene break)

Mikey jumped up and down cheering, they were in district nine now and the games going on there were wicked awesome, too bad Donnie was still busy. It kind of made him wish his brothers were here to watch it with him. But at least he had his new friend Casey.

(scene break)

Leo threw some projectiles that bounced off the gem ineffectually. He knew this wasn't working but he couldn't think of anything else.

Rath racked his brains trying to think of something heavy enough to knock that thing down.

A light bulb went off and he smacked the bottom of his fist into his palm, why didn't he think of that before?

He grabbed Leo by the ankle and swung his around and around building up momentum, then with a heavy swing sent him flying into the gem knocking it off its perch.

(scene break)

Mikey was on cloud nine. "I want to eat and eat and eat until I die." He sighed dreamily.

Donnie laughed, "Pizza does have that affect on people."

"I'm not really sure what you see in it. It's a good food-" April started.

"Shh." Casey said, "Let them have this." She looked at him, stumped.

"You're the best Donnie."

Don smiled, the words had a nostalgic feel. Mikey had said that to him many times before, But it had always been directed at Donnie the big brother, not Donnie the new guy.

A slight queasiness settled in, It was so easy to forget this Mikey had only met him a few days ago.

"What's your family like Mikey?" He asked.

Mikey smile faded, he sat up and hugged his knees. "They fight a lot, mostly my two brothers... Sometimes I expect Rath to just up and disappear, It keeps me up if I hear sounds at night.

I have to check them to make sure it isn't Rath, sometimes I see Leo poking his head out of his room too, I guess he has the same worry. I know those two really care about each other, but they never show it at all." Mikey rolled onto his back and gazed up at the currently empty sky. "Sometimes I think that as soon as we all grow up and Splinter finally lets us out I'll never see the two of them again.

"Why... Why are they like that?"

"I guess they're stir crazy, We aren't allowed out of the sewer."

"Splinter never let you leave?"

"He did once on our fifteenth mutation day but... We ran into some Purple dragons."

That's certainly a step down from fighting Krang. "What happened?"

"I... Well... The fighting got rough and I climbed up on a roof and I was cornered and... I thought Rath or Leo'd catch me. But they were bickering again and didn't notice I was so far away."

Donnie winced. "Were you OK?"

"After a few weeks, but Splinter won't let us back out until he thinks we can work as a team. Which won't be for another bijillion years 'cause we've been even less of a team since then."

Donnie wasn't sure what to say.

Casey, despite having a mouth full of pizza had no such issue, "That's rough, buddy."

"Sometimes I feel like a burden." Mikey said quietly.

"Don't say that," April said.

Donnie smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. "You've certainly helped me these past few days, I couldn't have gotten my lab together so fast without you."

Mikey opened his eyes and smiled, "Yeah... I guess that's true. Maybe If I beat up enough aliens and bring back a trophy, Master Splinter will see that I can take care of myself and let me lead my bros on another trip." Cheered significantly at this thought Mikey groped around the many pizza boxes surrounding them until he felt another piece and shoved it in his mouth.

"I'm going to go take another look around, can you guys poke around for a Krang power cell, or something similar?

"Sure." Casey said, " Come on Mikey, you can hang with me."

"I'll go with Donnie." April said, she would prefer it if none of them wandered this strange place alone.

"Uhh, Thanks April." Donnie said, feeling something flutter in his stomach.

The two groups separated.

(scene break)

"Ah man, we've been all over this crazy district, where is he?"

"We've been on screen all afternoon... But only in the districts we were competing in. Either, he's ignoring us. Or he's been bouncing around districts like crazy."

"Great, we'll never find him like this." "We unlocked a few districts, maybe if we went around them, we'll see Mikey competing in one of the games."

Leo stopped and held his arm out, Rath walked right into it with an umph. " Hey, what's the big idea?" he asked, rubbing his stomach. Leo pointed to the smallish form of Donnie darting through the crowd. "Hey! That's the guy Mike was with." They took off in hot pursuit.

Leo weaved through the crowd easily, Rath was close on his heels, but a large elephant-like alien walked right into him, knocking him to the ground. "Hey! Watch it!" Rath snapped, He caught something orange and green out of the corner of his eye and honed in on it, catching sight of Mikey walking off with some punk human kid. Rath leaped to his feet and made a beeline for them.

(scene break)

Leo pushed through the crowd and was rewarded at last as he came to a booth selling something electronic and complex looking.

His target was standing at a shelf narrating what sounded like an instruction manual to the girl at his side. Leo took a moment to try to think of a good opening. The two noticed him and he plastered an awkward smile on his face and waved. "Heeey... You. I've been looking all over for you."

"Leo?"

That stumped him. " How do you know my name?"

Donnie wondered whether to explain, but settled for- "You're Mikey's brother, he told me about you."

"Yeah, well. About that, me and Rath here- Rath?" he glanced to his side. "Great, just great."

"Leo, what are you doing here?"

"You entered these.. Games... With my brother right? Do you know where he went? I'm looking for him."

"He's been hanging out with me and April, he's off with Casey right now. The two of us are going to enter another event soon, would you like me to bring him over after?"

"Yes!" Leo said brightly. "Yes, I would."

Donnie started fiddling with the gizmos on the shelf and Leo rocked back and forth on his feet.

"Soo." Leo started, "You're a teenage mutant ninja turtle too."

"Yup."

"I thought there were only three."

"No, there's four."

"Yeeeaahhh... Sooo, how'd that happen?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you, well, actually, considering where we are, maybe you might."

"What's your name."

"I'm Donatello, I'm working on trying to identify some temporal anomaly's that I think are affecting New York, I came here to get some Tec to help me analyze it."

Leo nodded, trying to process that statement for any part of it that he could understand.

"Temporal... That means time, right?"

"Yes, I suspect that there was an event that might have altered the time stream, you might not notice, but there are some things that aren't part of your life that maybe should be."

"Like what?

"Well, for starters, I suspect you'd be a bit more jaded to things like this." He gestured to the street.

(scene break)

MIKEY!"

Mikey barely had time to utter a single "Huh?" before he was tackled in a hug.

"Rath? What are you doing?"

"Hugging you... I think."

"Well, could you not do that, It's weird."

Rath put him down. "What are you doing here?" Mikey asked.

"What am I doing here? What are you doing here?"

"I'm helping Donnie get tec so he can fix his lab, He can't use his old one for some reason."

"Donnie?" Rath then noticed Casey. "You're friends with a human?"

"I'm Casey, and do you think I'm I look like a regular human? I hang out with mutants and walk with aliens, Casey Jones isn't average."

"Uh, huh... Mikey, A moment." Without waiting for an answer Rath yanked him down an alley.

"What are you doing out here, where did you meet these people?"

"I met Donnie in the sewers, He was down so I offered to come here with him to cheer him up."

"You ran off with a complete stranger because he was sad?"

"I wanted to bring the two of you, but you were so busy snapping at each other I couldn't even ask."

Rath thought hard back to the night in question, still a little blurry, he remembered that he had met the other turtle too, He said something about his brothers, but he couldn't really recall what.

"I'm sorry Mike... If competing's what you really want, I'll support you."

"Thanks, Raph."

(scene break)

"I'm just glad I've found one of the guys I'm looking for. I can't believe Raph just took off like that."

"I'm sure he's around here somewhere Leo." April soothed. Trying to readjust the bag in her arms.

Donnie was trying to do the same with his bag- which contained a glider not unlike his bat wing inspired invention, when the computer on his arm beeped.

He paused and glanced down at his monitor. It showed a grid with an icon showing his position, and a red dot blinking a few meters away. He glanced up just in time to see something dart out of sight. " _I'm being watched '_ he thought, and scrambled into an alleyway, Pulling the glider over his shell, once there he clambered onto the roof of another merchant booth and blended into the shadows.

He could see something darting around in the shadows on the other side of the alley, it paused, perhaps confused about the sudden disappearance of its quarry, then moved off.

Donnie eased himself over the other side of the booth and tried to sneak behind them to somewhere where he could think. He walked right into something slightly shorted but wider than himself.

"There you are!" "We've been looking all over for you."

"Rath? "

"so Mike told you about me, huh, well you can tell Mikey we-" one moment Rath was pointing a finger at Don's face, the next he was grabbing the back of his shell and forcing him to the floor.

A red bolt of energy flew over their heads carving a scar into the wall behind them.

"What the heck was that?" Leo asked, sliding up next to them and facing their new opponent.

Donnie rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself onto his hands. "A mouser, here?"

"That thing a friend of yours?"

"No." Donnie said, keeping his eye on it. It wasn't even a typical mouser, this one was upgraded to be much bigger.

"All right, well, I'm sick of looking at it so-"

"You'd better sit this one out, rookie "Donnie said, getting back on his feet.

"Rookie! Who do you think you are?" He's upset Raph, he was sorry about that, but he needed to say it, more to remind himself than anyone else. He couldn't rely on his older brothers too much this time. Donnie leaped over the mouser and ran off with it on his tail, he ignored the angry cries of the other three and kept running.

He saw a large building coming out of the side of a small mountain in the middle of the grounds, he clambered onto the mountain and kept climbing. Two more mousers joined the third and ascended after him. He waited on a level section a third of the ways up and let them come to him.

All three of them tried to leap on him at once, he threw down a smoke bomb and leaped onto the third ones back, knocking it into the range of the other two and getting it torn to shreds by their stabbing metal legs.

He leaped off, released the blade hidden inside his Bo and dug it into the side of the mountain, dragging it through the dirt and slowing his descent to a stop.

The mousers swept down the hill after him. Rath appeared out of the shadows and knocked one off, clinging to its back, he wrapped his arms and legs around its metal appendages to keep it from regaining its grip on the mountain side before it hit the ground, its head smashing open as Rath leaped off.

Leo landed on the last one's back, it tried to reach around to stab him, but only succeeded in impaling itself. Leo moved from side to side dodging the mouser's limbs as it stabbed itself to death like an angry scorpion.

Donnie descended back to the ground. "What are mousers doing here?"

"DING" "GAAH I'm going to be late! I can't just leave Mikey hanging." He ran off in the direction of the next event." OY! " The other two called behind him. He waved back to them. "I've gotta go, meet me in front of the pizza place afterward, we'll do lunch."

"What? Hey! Get back here!"

Don ran into the entrance to the next event, the electric sign flashing ' competitor 54 enters.'

Raph and Leo slammed into a force field blocking them from the gate. The electric sign flashing 'signed in competitors only.'

(scene break)

He darted into the room, looking for Mikey, he spotted him by a rack of weapons, waving Donnie over.

"It looks like this is an archery competition, except you need to shoot from a moving cart." Mikey pointed to a rail way circling around the tournament.

Donnie grabbed his bow and arrows and leaped into a cart, Mikey leaping into the one behind him, they began to move as soon as they jumped in.

Donnie focus on the targets, he hit them easily, Mikey did the same.

"You're pretty good at that."

Donnie started, he turned around to face Kairos.

Not this guy again. "Hey," Donnie said awkwardly. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to ask you a favor."

"Me? What could I do for you?"

"I need someone to look at the time scepter, I think something is wrong with it."

"The time scepter? Me? I wouldn't have the first idea of what to do."

"If there is anyone in this time stream that has what it takes it's you."

"Me? Why me? This technology's got a be 1000 years ahead of me. Fugitoid would be a much better pic for this, It's going to take me a thousand years just to grasp the basics of this tec."

"That is exactly why I need you. You are one of the most famous inventors in Earth's history, not just because of your number of breakthroughs, but because of the way you made them, your intuition is unimitable."

Intuition was a word that Donatello had heard his brothers use many times, and he had learned not to be so quick to discount it as it had come in use. But it was a word that he associated with his brothers, never himself.

Kairos frowned, "what's the matter Donatello, are you just not motivated?"

"I am definitely motivated enough. I just don't see how it is possible." Donatello countered.

"Maybe you just need a little push." Kairos said.

"Hey guys." Mikey said.

"I don't see what type of push could help."

"Guys?" Mikey said uneasily.

"I'm sure we could find something."

"Guys, there's something moving through the trees. I keep seeing eyes watching us."

"Eyes?"

Suddenly a laser blast severed the rail under Mikey's cart."

"AAAHH!" Mikey screamed, falling fast he stuck out his hand and managed to grab a branch in the center of the ring. " Phew."

"Tigerclaw!" Donnie exclaimed, recognizing the telltale signature of the tiger mutant's blast gun.

Tigerclaw flew up, hovering over the roller coaster with his jet pack.

"You are coming with me, turtle, we have things to discuss."

"I will not." Donnie snapped.

Tigerclaw's ears twitched, twisting to listen behind him. "It seems we are being watched." Tigerclaw muttered. Donnie looked across from the mutant to see Raph and Leo with their hands pressed against the force field enclosing the arena.

"Is this part of the game?"

"I don't like it."

"What say you we give them a little show." Tigerclaw said before flying up the side of the field and pulling out a silver stick of metal. He tapped the wall of it and opened a screen that he tapped with the silver wand.

Suddenly the layout changed. Instead of a forest, the roller coaster rolled around and around a volcano.

"Mikey!" The turtles called in unison.

"Yikes! This is getting me hot under the collar. " Mikey joked, but the humor didn't really help to drown out his terror. A spiral of flames shot up the tree he was holding onto, blackening it in a matter of seconds."

"Ulp." was all he had to say before his branch broke off the tree, sending him falling screaming onto a large rock in the middle of the magma.

"Mikey!" Donnie exclaimed before looking up at Tigerclaw."

" _So that is how they managed to change the scenes of the contest so often and so easily. These contest stadiums are holographic, like Fugitoid's training room._ " Donnie realized. " _And that silver wand Tigerclaw is holding must be the electronic key they used to input the program. I have to get it to save Mikey._ "

Donatello ignored the jostling of the cart as it hit the bottom of the hill of the hill and started to crawl up slowly. Kairos caught his arm as he tried to jump out.

"You can't save him. That giant beast will blast you out of the sky if you try."

"Then I will just have to take out Tigerclaw before I save Mikey."

"That's impossible! But there might be another way." He held up his wand, "if you fix my scepter then I can go back in time and save him."

"I told you, it's too advanced." Donnie cried.

"Well, unless you can find a way to take that giant out of the sky this is the only chance you got."

"Then I'll just have to find a way to take him out." And with that Donnie jumped out of the cart, deploying his wings.

He swooped in fast and hard, clipping Tigerclaw with his wing and causing him to drop the electronic key. Donnie swooped down and caught it.

As his fingers wrapped around the key something jostled him and he started to spin out of control. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the laser-blast-sized smoldering hole in his wing right before his vision was obscured by the pink of the force field as he slammed into it.

He skated down the field before catching on to the metal ring that circled around the Stadium, separating the holographic projector from the force field film that encompassed it.

He heard the roar of the jet as Tigerclaw swung around to take another pass at him.

He reached into his weapons belt and pulled out three throwing stars. He threw the stars behind him at Tigerclaw who dodged easily. The throwing stars bounced off the sides of the force field until they flew back and lodged into Tigerclaw's backpack.

His jet started to sputter, starting and stopping, one can then the other, Spinning the large man-tiger out of control.

Donnie took advantage of the situation to crawl along the metal edge away from Tigerclaw and towards his siblings.

"Let me in there!" Raph screamed bashing the force field wildly with his fists.

"Donnie, help Mikey!" Leo called, knowing that Donnie was the only one in the position to help.

"I'm trying," Donnie said, tapping the side of the Coliseum with the electronic key and opening a screen. He tapped the screen with the key but got a locked program signal. "Drat, I'm going to have to try something else."

"Hurry!" Leo urged.

"Yeah, Don, I don't think I can stand this much longer." Mikey cried out.

"Let me in there!" Raph roared.

"Excellent Idea, Raph." Donnie said brightly. Tapping a few more keys the force field surrounding the stadium disappeared.

"That's what I'm talking about, "Raph whooped, "I'm coming, Mikey," He stopped at the edge of the ring and peered down at the lava. "Or not."

"Maybe I can make one more small alteration," Donnie muttered, A rope appeared around his shell. "Yes!"

He threw the rope over to Raph and Leo. "Let me jump over there, then tie the rope to myself, then with you two holding the other end I can swing over and save Mikey.

"No chance! It's too dangerous! I'll tie it to myself. You stay there until the game overseers figure out how to stop the program, leaping around this arena is too dangerous!"

An odd side effect of Donatello's intelligence and his impulse to solve which ever puzzle happened to come his way was that he had a tendency to get hung up on irrelevant trivia.

He puzzled over the cause of Leo's behavior. Temporal echo of his big brother instincts, transference caused by his resemblance to Leo's other kin?

Or just the older turtle's noble instincts and hero complex. He forced it away from his mind. What was important now was saving Mikey and they didn't have a moment to lose.

"I'm not arguing with you I'm just coming over."

He leaped at the other two turtles, ignoring Leo's flinch, it would have been an easy enough landing, just bounce off the two remaining non-flaming trees and land. But what he didn't think of was Tigerclaw spinning around as he landed on the first tree.

Irritated by the dizzying ride he'd been forced to take, Tigerclaw readied his beam weapon and shot at Don.

His aim was put off by the spinning, so instead of the turtle being vaporized, he hit the tree branch Don was standing on instead.

Donnie yelped as he fell downward. Fortunately for him, he fell right past the stone column Mikey was stranded on and Mikey managed to yank him onto the rock with him.

He stone cracked and the column started to slide sideways.

"Sideways, sideways!" Donnie called as they both leaned back.

The column started to tip the other way.

"Other way! Other way!" Donnie exclaimed as it tipped over a bit too much.

"Center Center!" He cried as it started to settle back into a less rocky position.

Mikey and Don hugged each other in terror. Trying to keep their weight centered.

"Don't worry guys, we'll save you!" Leo exclaimed, launching himself into the fray.

He fell till he was level with the column, then yanked to a stop as Raph pulled the rope taut.

Then he swung back and forth until he got close enough for the younger two to grab his arms.

Raph pulled them all up, leaving the stone column to crumble without the stabilizing weight.

He knew he was stronger than Leo, and both of them could lift a few times their own weight, Mutant strength and all. But he was a little surprised by the fact he could pull up three turtles out of a pit and drag them over the edge to safety this way.

He tugged the other turtles over the edge, He and Leo pressed the two younger turtles in-between them and let out a simultaneous sigh of relief.

"Let's get out of here." Raph said.

"Yeah," Leo agreed with him for once, "Let's."

(end chapter)

Sorry about that, I won't have any more chapter's that make you suffer through two and a half pages of scene breaks again, I promise.

The turtle wiki claims that the turtles are each capable of lifting five times their own weight, so Raph pulling all three turtles up should be possible.

I'm thinking of doing a cool website of the week type thing where I show a cool website I think people should know about at the end of each chapter. Or a cool tmnt related amv.

Today I'm going to recommend the non profits .com

It's a click to donate website where you can click to donate dog food, or water, or even click to plant trees. All you have to do is visit and click, you don't have to sign up or pay anything.

I'm going to upload about a chapter a week, except in the unlikely event I get one hundred favs, then I'll do it twice a week.


	3. The Mountain

The walk back to the cafeteria area was awkward. Mostly because Raph and Leo seemed to be trying to walk and keep the two younger turtles huddled between them at the same time. Even now, sitting down at a table with April and Casey, the two eldest still flanked them, keeping the two squished up next to each other.

Donnie sighed and got up, hard to do dramatically when you were squeezed in the middle but he managed.

"Where are you going?" Mikey asked.

"I don't know, to sign up for another tournament, maybe, I don't know what else to do with myself right now."

Leo stood, "Are you really considering entering another contest after what happened?" Leo asked in that 'I really think you need to reconsider this' tone of his.

"Yes." Donnie said, a little annoyed that he still had to justify himself to his older brother even when they weren't officially related.

"What kind of friend drags his teammate into a thing like that after they nearly got burned alive by a giant cat man?" Raph grouched, standing too.

"Not this one, Mikey is going home." Donnie said firmly.

Mikey's face fell "What? Going home? But I just got here!" He hopped out of his seat and ran over. "Please take me. I know I wasn't much help last time, but I can protect you better next time."

"This isn't about that, this is about you. You're a rookie and I don't want you getting dragged in over your head."

"If you won't take me, "Mikey started, running over and grabbing Leo and Raph before pushing them in front of Donnie, "Then take one of my brothers, They beat me in training every time, they can take care of you the way they do me."

Leo and Raph flinched at that last comment. Nether one really thought they'd done a particularly bang up job of that.

*Crash* "Get back here, you trespasser!"

Their attention was diverted to a blur of fabric running on four legs across the way and a group of security guards clamoring after it.

Leo and Raph exchanged looks "Was that-? Leo started to ask.

They dropped the question in favor of running over to check.

They stopped under a tree and started looking this way and that trying to figure out where the commotion had moved to.

Master Splinter dropped out of the foliage above them and straightened up, a small mouser tucked under his arm.

Donnie felt a rush of panic and threw himself behind a bush, How was he going to explain his appearance to his master?

Though really his first question was how Splinter had gotten past all that high-tec security.

Then he realized his first question should be ' How did he get here in the first place?' then he amended that to ' how did he even know to come?'

"Master Splinter!" The other three turtles exclaimed.

"How did you find us?" Leo asked.

"I used this." Splinter explained, hitting a button on the mouser, it opened its mouth and used it's hologram feature to show a small movie clip of Leo and Raph pausing outside a tunnel, watching a moment then moving into it. The scene changed to the two of them opening the portal and going through. "A large group of these broke into our home, I had to dismantle them to keep them from bringing footage of me back to wherever they came from."

That was worrying, The mousers had gotten into the lair? He didn't think they had trackers built in, so Splinter dismantling should have stopped them from revealing the lair to Baxter.

Well, that was the hope.

He watched the other turtles hug their father and sighed.

April walked up and put a hand on his shoulder. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah, just need a walk." He said, brushing her off and walking off.

He kicked a can out of his way as he tried to review his findings. A whole day dedicated to rebuilding his lab and what did it get him? He replaced his glider only for it to get shot to heck and gathered some parts that were unlikely to help him much.

All he'd learned was that Tigerclaw and Baxter had followed him, it would have been better if he'd just left the turtles back in the sewer.

Or would it? The mousers had found Splinter there after all, who was to say that the lair was any safer than the streets, Shredder had almost dumped a vat of chemical in there their first time around, who was to say he couldn't get another vat of the stuff after being deposited here. Had the Shredder crossed over too? If his minions made it, then Donnie would have to assume so.

Donnie was starting to come to an unpleasant conclusion, that his next move would have to be capturing Stockman and finding out what he knew.

Leo suddenly materialized beside him nearly causing him to jump out of his shell.

"Donnie." Leo said, "We need to talk."

"We do?" Donnie asked, confused.

"Our home was attacked by a bunch of robots. You know a lot about science going by your shopping list, which makes me think you probably know other people who know robots. And you have enemies, AND you were poking around our sewers."

Donnie knew where he was going with this. "You think those mousers were for me."

"Ah-ha! You do know them!"

"I do, and yes, it is possible that they were looking for me."

"Donnie you need to let me in on what's going on here, if whatever you're involved in is coming to the sewers then it's our problem too."

"Don't worry, Leo, It's not going to happen again, I'll take care of that."

Leo put a hand on Donnie's shoulder. "But who's going to take care of you? We can help. And we take care of our friends."

Donnie was about to answer when they were interrupted.

"Ah, Leo, Donnie, there you two are."

Master Splinter came up to them, effectively bringing their conversation to a halt.

"Yes, Sensi, What is it?" Leo asked respectfully.

"I would like to speak to Donnie for a few moments, please." Master Splinter answered.

"Oh, uh, sure." Leo said, backing away and leaving, glancing back over his shoulder at them as he did so.

"What is it, sir?" Donnie asked, not sure what his old teacher could want with him now.

"I wanted to ask you if you had made any headway in deciphering the mystery of these temporal peculiarities."

"Well, I-." He paused, "You know?"

Splinter smiled, " I do."

Donnie felt a large weight lift, "Oh, You have no idea how glad that makes me."

"Come, " Splinter ordered. "Let us walk, we have much to discuss."

(scene break)

Leo made his way back to his brothers, His spine straightened like an iron rod when he heard his name called.

"Leonardo." Master Splinter called, his voice cracking the air like a whip.

Leo stared at him, uncomprehending.

"Where did you run off to? It's time to go home." Splinter said firmly. The other three turtles flanking him.

Leo started to back away from them.

"Did you hear what I said?" Splinter asked again, it sounded like his patience was starting to slip after the stress of looking for his sons for 18 hours straight after a battle with little robots that were trying to eat his furniture.

Leo turned and ran away.

"Leonardo!" His father called after him, sounding angry. Leo ignored him and kept running.

He ran till he passed the spot where he and Donnie had been talking with the other Splinter, he ran till he spotted the two of them walking up the corkscrew path that climbed the mountain, he ran until he came to the edge of the mountain and ignored the path, clambering up the side of it instead.

He dug his fingers into the hard earth and pressed his feet into the rock, he ignored the cuts and kept climbing until he caught up with them.

"Look over the edge of the tall side and tell me what you see." Splinter said.

Leo climbed over the edge to see Don walking around the bend of the path.

No one would be able to see them there. Why was Splinter trying to get Donnie out of sight? And why were there two of them?

He glanced at Splinter. It looked like his Splinter. He glanced back down.

The other Splinter ran into the clearing with his sons at his heels. He was seething, but his angry look melted off when he looked up to see Leo standing next to his double.

Leo pulled on the double's ears, it felt.. Off. "Sensi? Where are you taking Donnie?"

"I wanted to talk to him alone, please leave, Leonardo."

"GET AWAY FROM HIM!" Leo looked back down, Splinter seemed angry again.

The double looked at him strangely, then smacked him off the side of the hill with its tail.

The synthetic skin wasn't much to stop the sting of the iron core and it whipped right past his stomach and kept going. Flinging his body away with full force.

His Splinter caught him mid-fall and landed back down gently.

Donnie came back around the bend and glanced around. "Did I just hear Leo?"

The double's tail wrapped around his neck and lifted him off his feet, choking him.

"DONNIE!" Mikey cried in anguish.

Rath grit his teeth and pulled out his Sias.

Donnie drew a rasp into the vacuum in his chest. _"Why?_ "

Tears formed at the edges of his eyes, " _why?"_

His vision began to spot, and he scrabbled his fingers against the tail around his neck, feeling the metal core under the synthetic fur. His vision came in and out of focus, but he could see the unnatural sheen of the metal teeth and the razor thinness of the claws.

" _It's not him."_

He poked out the fake tooth he had inserted in the gap in his mouth and bit down, breaking the inner cases and mixing the chemicals together. Knowing he only had a few seconds to stop the reaction from burning his mouth off, he spat it into the fake's face. The acid melted through the fake tooth and burned through the fur on Splinter's face into the metal core underneath, melting it into a dripping goo. The bot screeched like it had been angered and let go of his neck, choosing instead to slam its tail into him.

He flew off the level path and hit the mountainside hard, rolling painfully down it until he scraped to a stop. The bot leaped down after him and tried to slam it's tail on him as it came down. He rolled out of the way and it smashed a large slab of rock out of the mountain, it lifted its giant paw to rip into him.

A large chain wrapped around its paw, pulling it back from its intended target.

"Get away from my friend, Melty face!" Mikey yelled, tugging back on the other end of the chain. Rath joined him in a mighty tug and they almost pulled it off balance.

Letting out a metallic screech of something like hate, the newly christened Melty face yanked its paw back and sliced through the chain. Its motion sensors picked up something approaching its side fast so it turned its head and opened its mouth. Bolts of energy blasted out in small bursts.

Splinter wove through the bolts, dodging them until he came up in close range, then lashed out, somehow managing to slash the machine in half.

The top half landed in its hands, it bent over like a Raptor and let out a screech.

The other half ran as fast as its two legs could take it towards Don.

Leo and Rath jumped in front of him, while Mikey tried to haul the still coughing turtle to his feet and get him to safety.

Rath leaped into the fray, engaging Melty face's bottom half and dodging its whip-like tail.

"We'll Keep you covered, " He called out as Splinter and the top half engaged in combat, "You two, get him out of here."

Leo turned and grabbed Donnie and Mikey's hands, pulling them into a run behind him and leading them toward the tournament grounds through the forest.

The Rat legs stepped out of Rath's attack range and grabbed him by the ankle with its tail. It flung him upward so hard he fell back down in a heap.

The bot went tearing into the woods. Rath pushed himself up and took up pursuit.

It chased them through the woods until it nearly caught up with them. Leonardo caught sight of it and let go of his kin's hands, stepping in front of them he pulled out his Katanas.

The bot got within a few feet of them before Rath lurched out of the shadows and grabbed its tail. Stopping it short.

Since it couldn't whip them it jumped in the air and tried to beat Leo out of the way with rapid-fire kicks.

Leo blocked all of them with his Katanas.

Getting his breath back Donnie stood up and tried to approach it from the side.

Seeing what Donnie was trying to do, Mikey grabbed one of its feet, leaving it dangling in the air.

Leo grabbed the other one, stopping it in its tracks long enough for Donnie to locate it's circuit board and shut it off.

Once they were sure it was safe the other three turtles let go, letting the bot fall lifelessly to the dirt.

Splinter ran up to them, "Are you all right?" He asked.

"Yeah. We're ok." Leo said.

"I can assure I will catch up with the villain who thought to use my image to torment my kin and their friends." He seethed.

"Wow." Rath said, "I don't think I've ever seen him this steamed... I kind of like it."

"Allow to check your bruises." Splinter offered, turning to Don. He pulled back in shock.

"My son." He mouthed, flicking his gaze over each of his sons, he ghosted a finger over them counting reflexively.

"Who-"

"This is Donnie- I mean Donatello." Mikey cut in excitedly. "He's my bestest best friend in alllll the world and *ghaaassspp* "I just had the BEST idea ever. Can anyone say sleep over?"

"A what?" Rath asked.

"A sleep over, It's what all the human best besties do, at least on TV. Now that we've finally got a best friend, we've totally got to have a sleepover back at the lair. Pleeeeaaase master Splinter."

"I... Yes, I agree. A sleep over might be just the thing to help us recover from tonight." The old rat said in a daze.

"ALL RIGHT."

Mickey danced a dance of victory. Leo watched Splinter in concern. He'd never seen his father look so worried.

"DOOOOOOON!" Kairos appeared without anyone noticing and ran smack into Donnie crushing him into a hug.

"I was so worried. I saw the fight on my orb at the time palace, but it seems like I got here a few minutes late, are you ok?"

"Um, yeah, I think so."

"How about you and I go somewhere and figure this all out."

"Uh, No. I think I can manage things from my end."

"Don. Who is this creep?" Asked Rath. Something in him felt aggravated by the little man before him. If he hadn't known better he'd think he'd met that one before.

"Uh, this is Kairos, he's a time apprentice, he helps keep the timeline straight."

"So not only do you build machines I can't understand and travel to alien worlds... You also travel through Time? You really are a superhero. I KNEW IT!"

"Uh, not exactly Mikey, though I guess I have gone back in time before. "

"Well aren't you just a special little snowflake." Rath grouched. He still felt aggravated.

"I don't know if you should really be out by yourself Don. I mean, look what's happened already." Kairos said.

Rath shoved Kairos. "Yeah, we did all the saving while you hid in your time palace. Why do we need you again?"

Kairos's lips pursed. "I really think-"

"And I really think that it's fine, I'm ok, really." Donnie insisted.

His mouth tightened even more." Well... If you think so..."

"Don't tell me you're friends with that drama queen?" Raph demanded.

"No, I've only met him twice."

Rath nodded solemnly.

"Alright! Sleepover!" Mikey cheered.

"Donnie!" April called, she and Casey, ran over.

"Where did everybody run to? One second I thought we were getting along and then you guys all ditched us to run into the forest" Casey said.

Feeling emboldened by the appearance of his team, Donnie made a decision.

"Actually, I think I would like to go talk for Kairos for a moment. April, Casey, would you be willing to join us?"

"Sure." they both answered.

Kairos didn't seem pleased by this, but before he could come up with a reason against it, Donnie grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged him away.

"Alright Talk! What's going on!?"

"Don't be like that. I'm here to help you."

"Help! You came here to help? Then why don't you? I'm completely in the dark here and trying to put things together as I go along. First this thing, the Tigerclaw! " He pointed to the amulet on April's neck.

Kairos looked freaked out. "A Time capsule? How did you get that?"

"I found it in my bag, now if you want to help then EXPLAIN."

"Ok, that is a Time amulet, It can be used to collect some of the anomalies that got scattered out here after the uh, incident."

"What incident? Stop being so damn cryptic."

"I don't know if I should really tell you, I just want to protect you, Don."

"I don't want your protection... Whoever you are, I just want the truth."

"There was a time anomaly in your timeline, The Shredder was attempting to build a time machine. I went to go check it out and wound up in the crossfire in a turtle-foot brawl. I'm afraid the Time scepter was knocked around in the fight, It had far-reaching consequences."

"Like what?"

"It knocked you into another dimension. Now we're all stuck here."

"But... Why are we here then? Did we get knocked here from our original Timeline?" April asked.

"Unimportant, the important thing is that I need to round up the anomalies and repair the time scepter."

"Then you can return us to our timeline?"

"Yeah, But it's not going to be an overnight thing."

"Well, I can't fix the time wand, but maybe I can help you find anomalies, maybe I can build something to scan for them. I'll use the time amulet to show it what to scan for."

"Are you sure you can't help me fix the time scepter?"

"I don't think I can help you there, but I'll do my best to help you catch the anomalies." Donnie said.

The man got an odd look on his face, Donnie couldn't really read it, but he got the sense things weren't going the way the other man had hoped, Donnie would fix the scepter if he could, but he didn't know how.

"HEY NERD! ARE GOING TO PLAY TEAPARTY OVER THERE ALL NIGHT OR CAN WE GO HOME!" Raph yelled.

Donnie sighed, at least something in this dimension was the same.

(scene break)

Leo watched Donnie, Mikey, and the two humans watch TV. Donnie was fiddling with something electronic, Mikey and the human boy were having a popcorn fight.

Then he peeked into the kitchen to watch Master Splinter sit at the table with his head in his hands, he'd never seen him like that before. He felt a presence next to him and knew it was Rath.

"What's eating him?" his brother asked.

" I don't know."

After a minute of indecision, he entered the kitchen and sat down at the table.

"Master Splinter? Are you alright."

"No... I can't remember... No, I can."

"Remember... Remember what?"

"The day at the pet store."

"Mutation day?" Rath asked, joining the conversation.

"Yes, I remember it like it was yesterday. I was told that the turtles were being sold as a group because they bite."

Leo smiled. It was probably Rath that gave them that reputation.

"They were put in a white box and I didn't see them-you- again until after... But I did get a glance at them behind the counter before they were boxed... And now that I think about it... I could have sworn there were four turtles there."

"You mean-"

"HE'S OUR BROTHER!?

"Oh man, Mikey is going to freak."

"I wonder where he's been-"

"It is... More complicated than that." Splinter interjected.

That got their attention. "What do you mean?"

"Have you thought about how odd it is? The unlikeliness of another turtle, split from us, but schooled in the same arts, and the name..."

"Donatello? Wait... Isn't that another Italian painter?"

"One of my favorites. I have no doubt that if there was another turtle I would have given that name."

"But... What does that mean?"

"Is this some kind of trap?"

"I do not believe that is possible... And now that I know of his... Acquaintance... Who has such wondrous power as to bend time itself."

"What are you saying?"

"I am not saying anything... But I have to wonder... If he might have asked his friend to erase him from our memories."

"Why would he do that?" They all started and turned to see Mikey standing in the doorway with an empty bowl.

"Doesn't he love us? If he grew up with us he'd have to, he was so sad when Rath was mean to him."

"Way to go Rath." Leo snapped, " He might have changed his mind and decided to come home, and you chased him off!"

Rath cringed.

"Perhaps it was my fault, I restricted you all so much... Perhaps he felt this was the only way to get any freedom from me. I want you all to treat him warmly and make him feel at home, while I... I try to think of some way to approach this... Delicate problem.

Casey swaggered into the kitchen with April on his heels. "What's up with all you goons? you look like a funeral just happened."

April looked more sympathetic. "Are you guys still worried about that roborat Melty face? Don't worry. Donnie'll track its maker down, you can count on him."

"YEEEEEE!" Donnie smashed into the kitchen screaming, the dangling straps of his mask smoldering behind him.

He grabbed a fire extinguisher and bounded over the table back into the TV room.

Casey laughed, "If you can put up with the occasional fire."

April laughed a little too loud and held up two fingers close together. "Only small ones." she promised.

(scene break)

Donnie tossed and turned in his bed. He listened for the sound of Mikey's stilled breathing, and when he was absolutely certain he was the only one awake, he slipped out into the living room where the two humans were supposed to be sleeping, he found them sitting on their knees on the floor whispering to each other.

"You two aren't asleep either, huh?"

"Not really."

"I'm kind of a night owl."

"I keep thinking about this. And I think we could probably go out and find Stockman now."

"Now that's something I want to hear."

"What about the guys?"

"No see. That's the best part. See, we aren't going to tell them."

"What? Why?"

"I'm not sure they can handle it, you know all the stuff Stockman is capable of. We fought it bit by bit the first time, I don't think we could have handled it if we'd had all of his garbage lobbed at us at once."

"What's the big deal? Weren't you guys like born ninjas or something? "Casey asked.

"In a way- but you don't understand, we had to work through a lot of things to get to the point we were when you met us. Leo learned to pull us together as a team better, Mikey learned to focus more, Rath learned to harness his anger instead of letting it control him."

"He did?" Casey snorted, "are you sure?"

"Well, he got better at it. I just don't want to throw them in over their heads is all. Do you think the three of us could handle it?"

"Yeah, we could handle it," April said. "I just... Kind of wish we didn't have to alone is all."

(scene break)

Rath leaned closer. He still couldn't hear what they were saying.

"Are they sneaking out?" Rath jumped and spun to face Leo "Don't do that!" he said in a terse whisper.

"Maybe we should follow them."

Mikey opened his door and rubbed his eyes sleepily. "Why are you two whispering outside my room?"

"We think our guests are sneaking out."

Mikey dropped his hands to his sides "What?"

"There they go, they're leaving." Rath whispered, watching them.

"Well, we have to go get them, what if he decides to not come back." Mikey said in a panic.

"I vote we follow them, If they want to leave at this hour of the night, then they must be sneaking off somewhere... Right?" Leo reasoned.

"You got my vote, let's go." Raph agreed.

They followed the three to Casey's car and hung on the back, careful to keep out of sight.

They were surprised when they wound up in a warehouse district.

Donnie exited the car. "The readings come from here."

"All right, butt kicking time."

"Keep focused Casey." April chided. "This could be dangerous."

"Yeah, I know, but that doesn't make it any less fun."

"Are they part of a gang?" Leo asked.

"Sounds like fun, we should join." Rath retorted.

Leo glared at him, but said nothing as they slide off the car into the shadows.

They waited until the other teens picked a building and entered.

Then they ran up to the door.

Can you hear anything?" Rath asked, his ear smashed against the door frame.

"No." Leo said from the same position.

"Me either. They must have moved farther inside."

Leo pushed the door slightly ajar and peeked in, seeing no one he opened the door and the three brothers slid in.

"This seems bigger than I'd thought it'd be."

"Yeah, and emptier."

"Shh! You want them to notice and try to slip off?"

"Sorry."

Mikey stopped.

"Did you guys hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"A click. I think It came from one of those crates."

Mikey approached one and jumped up on a small box to reach the top.

"Mikey, stop horsing around, we aren't here for that."

"Hey, now I hear something too."

The box started whirring as Mikey lifted it up, the foot bot inside turned on as he did, the light from its eyes pouring out of the box.

Mikey hastily shut the lid and leaped away.

The lid went flying off and the bot jumped out. All around the warehouse boxes exploded in splinters of wood and flying lids as foot bots broke free.

"Uh, guys? Didn't you say there were only three robots the first time?"

"It looks like somebody's been working overtime." Raph observed.

"Get high." Leo ordered.

The three ascended the towers of crates until they wound up on the balance beams close to the ceiling.

The foot bots came after them and they took advantage of the high ground to take out as many as possible with Shuriken.

The bots started leaping on either side of the turtles, Leo sliced down the ones on one side and Rath took down the others. Mikey stayed in the middle and continued to rain down Shuriken on the ones below.

Mikey saw one of the ones on the ground pick up a crate and throw it, "Get down!" he called, moving out of the way. Rath was being pushed back by bots and couldn't dodge, he was knocked down. "RATH!" Mikey called. A 'humpth' from behind told him that Leo had been knocked off too, he turned to see nothing behind him. "LEO!"

Rath and Leo pivoted in the air maneuvering themselves to land on their feet and roll straight into another attack position.

Mikey felt a swell of panic welling up inside, he was being attacked on both sides with no backup.

He managed well enough at first, then he felt something wet and slimy land on his forehead.

He looked up to see another foot bot clinging to the ceiling above his head. Then a sharp stinging sensation pierced his brain and he lost control.

(end chapter)

Yo, me again with more recs-This time it's 'tab for a cause'. Just type that in and you should find their site. Every time you open a tab after selecting them opens a new tab with a small but not bothersome ads, the ad revenue is used to gain hearts, which you can donate to a charity of your choice(they usually have four or more to choose from), if you upload it you'll be donating three weeks worth of free water in no time. The tab pages are even customizable. It's great, check it out.


	4. The warehouse

"Are you sure you aren't being too hard on the guys?" April asked.

"You weren't in training back then, you don't know how it started with us, we had to learn as we went, I can't imagine what would have happened to us if we had to take everything at once. Kraang were one thing. But Kraang, and brain worms, and mousers, and Tigerclaw, and Shredder? Do you remember how Leo's first serious fight with shredder went?" Donnie replied.

"Leo..." April mutters sadly.

"I don't want a repeat of that, or anything even remotely close to it.

"Way to be a downer, Donnie dude" said Casey.

"Shush, I hear voices." Donnie said.

They wove their way through the labyrinth of machinery. Until they came close enough they could hear the voice just around the corner. They pressed their backs against the machine. Sliding closer, Donnie peered around the corner.

"Who is it?" April asked.

"Stockfly, and three Kraang." Donnie answered.

"I want to look." Casey said, trying to elbow his way around April. She shoved him back in place.

"Can you hear what they're saying?" She asked.

Donnie craned his neck in an attempt to hear them better. He couldn't make out what they were saying, but something else caught his eye. Above them, close to the ceiling was a mess of crisscrossing catwalks and rotary belts. On one of the catwalks, he could see smoke.

"I'm going to go check something out, April, keep Casey from moving." Donnie commanded.

"Wha-Hey."

"You got it."

He slid away from the machinery and wound his way through the shadows over to a ladder.

He ascended cautiously, keeping one eye on the aliens and another on the smoke.

He peered over the top of the ladder trying to glimpse whatever was smoking, whatever it was, it was hidden behind a bunch of crates. That looked like an odd place to put crates, Donnie thought.

He snuck across the catwalk, trying to get closer to whatever was smoking, as he got closer to the smoke, he also got closer to the Kraang and Stockfly.

"And then, once I recover them, I can retrieve your things too."

"And you can give Kraang your assurance that you are able to bring Kraang's bases back after the anomaly destroyed them?"

"Absolutely."

Stockman can retrieve things that were lost the temporal anomaly? That must be a marvel of science, Donnie would give anything to look at the schematics. Geeking out aside, while he didn't know what it was Stockman was trying to bring back, now that the fly had promised to bring the Kraang bases back after he had retrieved whatever it was, it had now become in the turtle's best interest to make sure he didn't get it. But first he had to answer the question of what was smoking.

He pressed his back against the crates and peered around them at whatever was behind them.

Kairos was sitting with his back against the crates too, smoking a cigarette. His eyes bugged out when he saw Donnie looking at him. "What are you doing here?" He asked, grinding out his cigarette.

"I could ask you the same thing." Donnie replied.

"I am just doing my job. Learning about the temporal anomalies so I can fix them."

"Then why don't you just-" Donny started to ask. Kairos put up a finger to shush him and then pointed downward.

"Kraang is interested in your offer. We will help you in any way we can."

"Kraang is also interested in your offer to upgrade Kraang's human suit, Kraang would like more design options."

The third Kraang raised its hand. "Kraang would like to look like the human known as Robert Redford."

*crash* the door smashed open, slapping into the walls with an audible crack.

Leo ran into a room, followed by foot bots.

"What is the meaning of this?" Stockman demanded.

"Oh yeah! This just got awesome." Casey called.

"So much for stealth mode, Casey. And what is Leo doing here?" Donnie asked.

"Robots, Casey?" Leo asked, "Don't you guys ever do anything normal?"

"Who wants to do anything normal?" Casey asked. April knocked some crates over with her fan, smashing a few of the bots closest to Leo's tail.

"Casey Jones has this covered, He'll take the Bots, you take the chewed up gum and the fly."

He jumped out of his hiding place, jumped into a pair of skates in a smooth movement that just had to be practiced, and flew past Leo into the warehouse, smacking an exploding puck into a pile of crates as he went by, caving them in over the doorway and trapping Casey in with the foot ninja. Casey would no doubt claim he was trapping the foot ninja in with him.

The Kraang pulled out their guns and pointed them at April who was closest.

Donnie stood up and threw his throwing stars at the guns. Causing two of them to spark and knocking one of them out of the Kraang's hands.

Recognizing new opponents when he saw them, Leo charged a Kraang suit.

Stockfly buzzed angrily. "Turtles, turtles, always turtles! This'll take care of them." He hit a button.

Donnie heard an eerie clicking noise from inside the crates. A sharp blade pierced the crate from the inside, then ripped it open, revealing a Robot that looked exactly like a metal Karai.

The other two crates exploded, revealing two other Karai-bots.

Kairos yipped and backed away.

Donnie slammed one of them with his Bo to get their attention, knocking off the catwalk.

He leaped off the catwalk on the rotary belt and raced across, leading the Karai-bots away from Kairos.

Leo charged the Kraang, they charged him back and they all dissolved into a flurry of movement, duck, kick, slash, block, duck, punch, cut, sidestep.

Why wasn't Leo dispatching them? He's never had a problem with them before.

April threw her fan at one of the Karai-bots. Knocking it down. Donnie spun on the other Karai Bot, pulling up his Bo to block her Tanto.

He pushed his foot back to brace against the blow and his foot sunk into the gap in the rotary belt. That didn't stop him from knocking her off the belt too.

Kairos leaped down from the catwalk and held up the time scepter, a beam flew out of it and caught the Karai-bots, Freezing them in time. It seemed to take continuous exertion for him to keep them stuck that way though, as he began to sweat.

One of the Kraang had slipped away from the rest and leaped up onto the rotary belt.

Donnie held up his Bo, The Kraang walked closer and closer to him, shooting blasts that seared Donnie's Bo as he blocked them.

This isn't good. " Donnie thought.

He reached the end of the rotary belt and tipped off the side. He had expected his foot to slide out of the belt when he tripped, but all that happened was he hung by his foot upside down as the belt started to carry him the other way.

"Great, just great," He muttered.

He held up his Bo to defend himself as the Kraang poked over the side to fire.

April knocked it off the belt with her fan, and Donnie caught the Kraangs gun as it fell past him.

The two Kraang Leo was fighting stepped back from their opponent to consider Donatello.

"It seems one of the turtles has got a gun."

"Don't worry Krang, The turtle cannot operate the gun as it's fingers are as big as what are known as sausages and cannot press what is known as the trigger."

Donnie bent himself into a U so he could balance the gun on his shoulder at what was behind him, then he craned his neck forward and pressed his tongue into the trigger, not optimal, but it got the job done.

He couldn't see the blasts, but he could hear the shots, the scrabbling of the Kraang to get away, and the commentary.

"It seems Kraang was misinformed. "

"Shut up Kraang."

(scene break)

Raph managed to get the attention of the remaining bots, Leo had been chased into another room and Mikey was no where to be seen. Which was really worrying if he was honest.

One of the shots went wild and somehow managed to tear a turtle sized hole in the ceiling.

He leaped from crate to crate until he got out and climbed onto the roof.

The bot swarmed in after him. He jumped onto the rain drain and slide down until his feet reached the bottom.

The bot leaped down after him and he raced away. "There must be something I can do to shake these goons."

"Goongala!" Casey blasted through the doors to the warehouse and sped over to his car which he jumped into and turned on.

The foot bots followed him, charging the car.

He revved the engines and went full throttle, crashing through the footbots and charging Raph.

Raph rolled out of the way easily and Casey crashed through the horde of footbots.

Casey poked his head out of the car and looked back at Raph to give him a thumbs up.

"Casey Jones has got this, go help the others," He sat back down and put a hand on the peddle. "I've always wanted to try a car chase in reverse."

He zoomed out of the parking lot backward, the Footbots giving chase. Maybe they were programmed to go after the fasted moving target, maybe they thought he was the biggest threat. Raph's theory was they thought he was the biggest nuisance.

Still, kid was pretty cool, and this gave the opportunity to find out what happened to everyone else.

He burst into the warehouse, calling at the top of his lungs, he smashed into the doors Leo had run through trying to smash them open, but something in behind of them was keeping them jammed shut. He spotted a window and exited, scanning the side of the building for any more doors, one of them led into the factory the warehouse was connected to, he swept in quietly.

Just a bunch of machines he didn't recognize and piles of crates. He called once more.

"Mikey! Leo!"

Alright, this was worrying, not so much Leo, he could take care of himself, But Mikey had disappeared without a trace, and the thought of his little brother dragged off into the shadows somewhere made Raph's blood boil. He ghosted through the labyrinth of boxes, there were a bunch of hooks hanging from the ceiling by chains, The morbid part of his brain kept expecting to see Mikey or even Donnie hanging from one. He beat the unwelcome image away savagely and plowed on.

Something made him stop and listen.

...

...

...

...

...

He didn't hear anything so why was he stopping? He wondered. He tried to pin down anything that could explain this sense he had of offness, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

Not willing to spend the whole night planted to the spot because of a possibly misplaced instinct he continued his search.

Something flashed across his line of sight and he felt a chain wrap itself taunt around his neck, cutting into his skin and suffocating him.

He reacted on 15 years of ingrained battle instinct and slammed his elbow into his opponent repeatedly. He heard the oomph that told him his blows were landing true, but whatever had him must have been determined, because it was willing to endure his blows in exchange for keeping him in its lock.

He hadn't enough air in his lungs to hold out without passing out, so he backed into the person behind him until he had walked them into a wall and slammed his weight into them, slackening their grip enough for him to slip out of their hold and spin to face them.

Mikey shoved himself away from the wall and growled.

Raph's eye's bugged out in disbelief. "MIKEY!" He screamed in rage. Of all the stupid- here he thought he was being attacked by some horror of the night and it turned out his kid brother had just mistaken him for another stupid bot, How did you even do that? For that matter, why would you try to choke a robot? Sometimes the idiocy of his brother just hurt, this time very literally.

"What's gotten into you?" Raph snapped, not really expecting an answer.

"What's the matter Raph? I thought you said you've been waiting for a serious fight your whole life?"

Something in the other turtles tone made his skin prickle,"Is this a joke?"

"Oh, I'm done playing around, it's time for us to get serious."

Mikey held up his chuck and pulled it taut, then let go of one end and started to spin, walking closer and closer as he did so.

"Mikey... What did they do to you?" Raph said, backing away, They did something to him, that was the only explanation. Mikey was as viscous as a fluffy chick eating a marshmallow on most days, this change must have been caused by some kind of scientist trickster. He never trusted the way they did all those things he didn't understand, this just hitched his distrust up several notches.

"I'm sorry Mikey, but I have to take you out,"He pulled out his Sai's," then I'm gonna drag your butt to that Maybe-brother of ours so he can fix ya." He didn't know how he knew that Donnie could fix this, he just did. Someone he knew had to know how to fix this, an evil Mikey just went against the laws of nature.

Mikey leaped at him, trying to triple kick him. Raph threw up his arms to block the blows and managed to get a hold of Mikey foot, he flung his little brother away from him.

Mikey extended his grappling chain and hooked it around a beam, then swung back in a circle faster than Raph expected, slamming him in the back.

Mikey yanked back his scythe and began to spin it around himself creating a small perimeter of death that would slice Raph to ribbons if he tried to approach.

Mikey came in fast, Raph backed away quickly dodging the spinning blades as he went. Realizing they were too fast to dodge, Raph jumped next to a stack of crates and ducked. Mikey's blade slammed into the crate and got stuck. Mikey yanked it back, and while he was so occupied Raph dove at him, landing an uppercut to his jaw and tipping him right over.

But it would take more than being shoved into an awkward position to stop another member of the Hamato clan. Mikey put out a hand to balance on and attacked Raph with his feet. Kicking him back, then flipped back onto his feet again. He back flipped onto a wall and kicked off it, launching him into the air where he grabbed one of the hooks hanging from the ceiling and swung up onto a catwalk.

"How am I going to stop this guy? Tie him up with his own chain? Ugg, Why couldn't I have gotten a smashed em up fight like in the movies, trying to defeat someone without hurting them is harder than I thought."

Mikey threw a pair of throwing stars and Raph leaped out of the way of them, one of them smashed a powerbox and started the factory somehow. One rotary belt moved metal plates under a large metal hammer that beat them with a clang and lifted up in time to another belt setting its product against a drill.

He had always imagined his first big fight going one of two ways, one, he snuck by himself and did it on his lonesome, two, him and his brothers did it together. This bizarre combination wasn't one he had considered.

Raph jumped up to the catwalk, standing directly across Mikey.

As soon as his feet touched the catwalk Mikey charged, coming in fast and throwing Staccato punches.

"When did he get so fast?" Rachel thought, barely able to stop the hits.

Finally, Mikey made a mistake and swung for his head. Rath ducked under the blow and elbowed Mikey in the stomach, causing the younger turtle to double over.

Raphael threw himself at the younger turtle, intending to pin him under Raph's weight.

Mikey rolled off the catwalk before Raph could land on him, he held on to the bottom of the catwalk and swung his legs back and forth, then with a mighty swing he threw himself off the catwalk and grabbed on to one of the chains hanging from the ceiling.

Raph placed his Sai's back in his belt and jumped on to a chain, using it as a tightrope he made his way over to where Mikey had climbed up and was pulling up the chain and hook.

Mikey spun the chain round and round, then threw it at Raphael, wrapping the chain around his brother's arms and chest then yanking.

The yank pulled Rath right off the chain and he fell. Raph yelled at the sight of the approaching ground, knowing he couldn't stop with his arms bound, he twisted in the air so the back of his shell would take the brunt of the impact. Mikey flung himself down after Rath, hurling rapid fire punches at Raph's defenseless body, he pummeled the older turtle mercilessly.

Raph slammed down on the floor feeling stunned, He was glad he was the hardiest of the three, if it was Leo in here he'd have blacked out.

Mikey landed next to him and began to kick savagely. Raph endured the hits until he had recovered enough to wrap his legs around Mikey's and flip him down.

He rolled onto his feet and tried to run far enough away he could undo his chain.

He jerked to a stop as Mikey grabbed hold of his chain. Raph gritted his teeth and ran back.

He circled around Mikey and ran away, Wrapping the chain around Mikey's feet and yanking the smaller turtle off his feet. Raph threw himself onto the round and rolled until he unwrapped the chain around his arms. Mikey pulled off the chains and stood up growling.

"Sorry about this Bro." Raph said, pulling out his Sai's and charging.

(scene break)

"Aargh!" Leo yelled, the Kraang threw him across the room.

"Get your head in the game Leo!" April reprimanded, picking up a pipe and slamming the Kraang hard enough to send to flying.

"Holy chalupa! Leo, This is the worst showing you've put in yet." Donnie called.

What was going on? Leo'd never had this much trouble with a Kraang before. Maybe the first time they fought, but that was because they were having their first out-of-the-sewers fight and kept getting in each others way. That and they mistook the Kraang for human and- Donnie slammed his fist into his palm in realization- Kept holding back.

April spun on the third Kraang member, but was too slow, it kicked out and slammed her into a pile of crates, knocking her out.

"April!" Donnie screamed. He gestured at Leo madly, "Leo! Get the Kraang! Strike to kill!"

"Kill?" Leo asked.

"Don't hold back!" They both watched in horror as the Kraang picked up the pipe and stood over April, poised to strike. "NOW!"

Leo Flung himself at the Kraang, wrapping his legs around its waist and pulling out a dagger.

He raised the dagger above his head and plunged repeatedly, tears streaming from his eyes.

Donnie kicked himself, he forgot to tell Leo he was attacking a robot, in the rookie's eyes he had just finished his first fight against a human opponent with deadly force, something that would haunt him for a long time. Blast, this was exactly why he didn't want to get his brothers involved.

Leo kept plunging until he'd taken the Kraangs head off and it fell forward on its stomach.

Leo pushed himself away from the Kraang panting.

The Kraang suit rocked back and forth until it rolled on its back, then the Kraang opened up its suits stomach plate and crawled out.

Leo saw the alien brain with teeth and screamed.

The Kraang saw Leo screaming and screamed back. They backed away from each other and The Kraang turned and scurried away.

"What was that Thing!?" Leo exclaimed.

"That was an alien called a Kraang. Little help here." Donnie called.

Leo boggled at him.

"Now!" Donnie snapped, all this hanging upside down was giving him a headache.

"Uh, sure Donnie." Leo agreed, still in a daze.

Leo climbed up onto the conveyor and pried Donnie out of the pocket.

Donnie fell and threw out his arms so he could roll onto his feet, but had to clutch his head after as waves of dizziness pounded his skull.

*Crash* Raph and Mickey rolled through the side, Raph caught Mickey in a bear hug and the smaller turtle tried to escape by slamming his elbow into Raph's stomach repeatedly.

"Would you two knock it off," Leo admonished, "This is not the time."

"Something's wrong with Mikey." Raph called, the panic in his voice making it clear this wasn't a joke. "That *oomph* freaky super villain *oomph*that sent the roborat *oomph* did something to him."

"Mikey must be infected by a brainworm." Donnie exclaimed, catching on immediately.

"A what!?" Leo asked, sounding like that was something terminal.

"Leo! Did master Splinter ever teach you the healing hands technique?"

"You know about that?"

"Do you know it!?"

"Yes."

"Use it on Mikey."

Leo ran over to his brother and dropped to one knee next to them, running through the hand motions.

He placed his hands on Mikey and Mikey began to twitch.

Raph let him go and Mikey rolled onto his hands and knees and threw up.

The brain worm hit the ground and started to wiggle away. Raph stabbed it with the end of his Sai. Leo blanched, "That thing was in Mikey?"

"Oooh." Mikey groaned. "That's just not right." He mumbled.

"Mikey!" Raph exclaimed, grabbing his brother and kissing his cheek with a 'mwa-mwa-mwa'. " I've never been so happy to see you. The real you." He hugged Mikey close to his chest and beamed at Donnie in relief. "I knew you would know some way to bring him back." Then he frowned as a thought occurred to him. "Just what the heck are you doing running off to fight a super villain with mind control maggots all by yourself, anyway?"

"I brought back up."

"And where are they?"

"Um, one disappeared and another one was knocked out."

Raph and Leo shared a look.

Leo straightened and took a step towards Donnie.

"Donnie, I think we need to talk."

"I won't be-eee forced to concede defeat again."

Stockfly chose this moment to come out of his hiding place- picking up a crate and swinging it into Kairos's back.

Kairos crumpled under the weight of the crate and the stasis bubble he had caught the Karai-bots in dissipated, dropping the Bots held within.

The Bots charged the turtles going after Raph, Leo and Donnie.

Donnie tried to kick the bot, but it leaped over his leg slamming him down to the ground.

He placed his hands on the bot's shoulders- pushing it away from him.

The gears whirred as the strong mechanical muscles moved closer, the robot opened its mouth to reveal a brain worm. Donnie screamed, and from the sounds coming from his right his brothers were in the same boat he was.

The bot had nearly pressed the worm to his head when it was yanked away from him.

Mikey "ho-aaawww"ed and slammed the robot against the ground back and forth like Tweety bird thrashing a cat in the old cartoons, smashing the bots to bits as he did so.

Donnie exhaled in relief and stood up, turning to look at the rumble going on to his right.

Leo and Raph shoved the bots away from themselves.

"Guys?" Donnie asked nervously, "Are you with us?"

His two brothers turned to face him, third eye lids pulled back over their eyes.

"Oh, we're in trouble." Donnie whimpered. "MIKEY RUN!"

(end chapter)

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	5. The Factory

_"Ooohh we're in trouble." Donnie whimpered. "MIKEY RUN!"_

Donnie then had to duck as Leo tried to take his head off with a swipe of his swords.

Donnie managed to spin the other turtle away from him just in time for Raph to try and break his ribs with a Sai stab.

Mikey crashed into Raph, knocking him off line, then grabbed Donnie's hand and ran through the door he and Raph had crashed through before.

"Are they possessed by the same ick worm that got me?" Mikey called back.

"Yes, so run! run for your life!"

"You don't need to tell me twice." Mikey ran past the conveyer belts of humming and clanking machines then deployed the chain from his chucks. catching something on the ceiling, he swung the two of them onto a catwalk.

They huddled down and peered over the sided of the walk at their pursuers.

Mikey backed away from the edge and clutched his head, "I am freaking out." He said in a harsh whisper. "How are we going to beat those two."

"There must be some way, Think Mikey, is there anytime in training that you managed to beat them? You must have one arena you're the champ in."

"Oh I don't know, my best skills are target practice, racing, and nunchucks. I can't beat them with just that."

"And my best skills are Bo practice and balancing, the only place I outshine them in is science."

Donnie analyzed the situation.

Raph's weapon is the only one with minimal lethal uses. Sai in general are meant to be used to disarm. Splinter gave the most dangerous and angry turtle the hardest weapon to kill with, this wasn't the first time he'd been thankful for his father's wisdom on that front. Of course, The Sai is a perfectly lethal weapon if wielded with the intent to kill. Not only is the central shaft more than enough to pierce deep into the body and reach vital organs, but the pommel can crack or even punch through the skull. The appeal of the Sai is that it's so versatile to begin with, and Raph certainly wields it in a lethal manner. Heck, he probably had the most kills of all of them.

Then there was Leo, Raph beat Leo the last practice they had before their first outing to the surface, but afterwards Leo revealed his greatest talent, quick situation appraisal, and strategy. Leo managed to adapt to anything that came his way, all the best warriors do. Donnie's Leo had managed to take the edge he'd gained from that adaption back to the dojo and turn into a fighter that could take on even Splinter(for a little bit anyway.) But this rookie Leo didn't have that advantage, so he should be easier to fight, right?

Donnie turned the equation around and around in his mind, eventually a lightbulb went off and he grinned.

"You don't have to beat them, Mikey, you just need to stay ahead of them for a bit while I try to find something to help us. You've got enough practice staying ahead of them from all those pranks you get chased for, you just need to do it a bit longer this time." Donnie said, temporarily forgetting that he wasn't supposed to know about that.

"Stay ahead of them? ... Yeah," Mikey smiled, confidence returning, "I can do that."

They waited until Leo and Raph had circled to opposite sides of the room, Raphael circling back to their entrance and Leonardo leading the two robots toward the exit door.

Mikey and Donnie inched to the two ends of the catwalk and pounced on their brothers.

Donnie ran out the exit after using Leo's head as a springboard, _"all I have to do is lead these three away from Mikey and Rath and lose them, then I can circle back to Stockman's lab and find something that can help."_

"BOOKASHYAA!" Mikey landed on Raph's back and shoved his chain in Raph's mouth before tugged at the ends of his chucks like a horse's bit.

Raph shook this way and that, trying to buck Mikey off like an angry bull.

Mickey held tight, wrapping his legs around Raph so the other turtle couldn't pull him off and managing to stay on even when Raph rolled along the floor, squishing the younger turtle under his weight. Raph got even angrier and shoved himself against one of the machines, trying to wedge Mikey under one of the clanging metal hammers.

Mikey flipped off Raph's back, pulling his nunchucks with him and nearly taking out a few of Raph's teeth with them.

Raph rubbed his aching Jaw. "You're going to pay for that. Along with everything else. I should have done this years ago. Would have made things easier on everyone."

"You're only saying that because you love me so." Mikey cooed. "Hey, you know what this fight needs? Theme music."

"Even looking into the jaws of death you still can't be serious."Raph grouched, squaring his shoulders.

"Come on, Raph, I'm starting to think you like that worm more than me."

Mikey started striking poses while singing. "Raphie and a brain worm sitting in a tree."

Raph snarled and pounced, Mikey bounced off a wall. "K." He bounced off the top of the conveyer belt. "I" He grabbed a chain, placed his feet on the crane hook and swung around the room. "S-S" Raph tried to belt him with throwing stars but he swung back and forth passed them without breaking his chant. Mikey spotted an abandoned magazine with an ad for target printed on the back, and that was too good an opportunity to pass up.

"I-N-G"

He leaped onto the catwalk and scooped it up. "What's the matter Raph? Your aim off today? Here, I'll give you a free shot. " Mikey waggled his butt back and forth holding the Target ad in front of it.

"First comes love

Then comes marrage

then comes a baby in a baby carraige."

Raph roared and flung a Sai at him. Mikey held his chucks behind the target on the magazine. The Sai went through the zine and got wedged between Mikey's two chucks.

Mikey held up his Chucks so Raph could see. "Ooops. guess this belongs to me now." He pulled down his eyelid with one finger and stuck out his tongue. "Nyeh!"

"AAARGH!" Raph performed a series of acrobatics, bounding up the machines and managed to fling himself at Mikey from above.

Gripping his Sai above his head with both hands he tried to plunge it into Mikey's shell.

Mikey back flipped out of the way and kept back flipping down the catwalk, off the catwalk, and through the entrance to the main factory room, still singing.

"Roses are red, Violets are blue

Raphie and a brain worm?

Guess it takes two."

Raph barreled through the door, roaring in rage.

Mikey landed on one leg and scooted back on it while placing a hand on the back of his head, dancing in front of a crate. When Raph got too close Mikey cartwheeled out of his way, allowing Raph to crash into the crate and get his Sai wedged there.

Mikey put a finger on his chin and thought for a moment. "Eh, can we forget that last verse? It wasn't one of my best."

A Karai bot was smashed head first into the door connecting the factory to the ware house and beeped a bit before exploding.

Donnie rolled in through the hole in the door with Leo and the Karai bot on his tail.

"So much for trying to lose them," Donnie complained. He stabbed the bots head off and tried to duck under Leo's swords.

Raph put a foot on the crate and tried to pull his Sai out of it. Roaring in rage.

Mikey got right up in his face.

"What's the matter Raph? Stuck? Not on your game today? Or maybe... just maybe?" Mikey started to draw out his words to mimic slow motion. "Maaaybbe I'mm beetterr theen youuu."

Raph doubled over and threw up.

Mikey gasped "It's the ick worm!" He cried, reflexively he stamped his foot down on it, then regretted this decision immediately.

"EWWW. EW!EW!EW!" He screamed hopping on one foot.

Raph stood up. "Did I hurt you, Mikey?"

"Oh bro, you're back! Here take your Sai back and go help Donnie."

As soon as Mikey handed Raph his Sai back Leo threw Donnie into Mikey. Slamming both of them to the floor.

Raph pulled out his other Sai and turned to face Leo.

Leo charged.

Raph trapped Leo's Katanas in his Sai's and flipped Leo over, Sending Leo one way and his katanas the other.

Mikey and Donnie leaped forward in an attempt to dogpile their brother into submission.

Leo rolled out from under them and onto his feet. He lunged for the Karai bot and landed on its back, he grabbed both of its back panels and ripped then off, revealing a sparkling mass lodged in the Bots chest cavity. He gripped it roughly and started to pull it out of the robot.

Donnie remembered the explosive nature of the bots sister. "That's not good. EVERYONE GET DOWN!"

Leo jerked the sparking battery out of the bot and threw it at them. The sparking plug flew through the air then exploded. The turtles all scrabbled out of the way, the blast sent them flying. Raph and Mikey flew into a crate, falling stunned to the floor. Donnie managed to throw himself to the floor and cover his head with his arms, missing most of the shock.

He looked over his shoulder.

Raph groaned on the floor, he didn't look like he was going to move anytime soon.

Leo had been blown back too, but his shell took the brunt of it. He stood up, stalked over to the fallen bot and wrenched the tanto out of its grip. So much for hoping it took Leo as long as his other self to learn situational adaptability. How did he learn this so fast? Was he underestimating his brother even as a rookie? Or… Donnie felt a thrill of fear go through him. Did his brother regain some temporal echo of the turtle he used to be? Donnie's palms began to sweat. If he had to fight 'could manage to land a punch on Master Splinter' Leo instead of rookie Leo then this was going to end badly.

Leo charged Raph, raising his Tanto high. With no time left to think Donnie gripped his Bo and charged Leo from the side, attempting to land a hit before Leo saw him coming.

Leo noticed Donnie in his peripheral vision and spun on the balls of his feet, backing away in short jumps whenever Donnie tried to land a hit.

Donnie readjusted his grip so one side of the Bo was shorter than the other and deployed his naginata out of his short end, swiping at Leo's face. As expected Leo tilted his head back so the blade missed his eyes by inches. With Leo's attention of the naginata, Donnie swiftly spun his Bo around and tried to jab Leo in the plastron with the long end of his Bo to wind him.

Leo's battle reflexes were too fast for that, though. He grabbed Donnie's Bo and chucked the Bo and the Turtle gripping it across the room. Donnie managed to roll as he landed so he came to a stop on his feet.

Leo lunged at him with the Tanto. Donnie used his Bo to pole vault over the other turtle onto a machine. With that jumping off point, he bounced onto the catwalk.

Leo forgot about the other turtles and went straight to the ladder. Donnie decided he needed to rethink his strategy. He wasn't attempting to beat Leo, he was attempting to get Leo to throw up his brain worm. So what could he do to make that happen?

Leo ascended onto the catwalk and pulled out his Tanto. Donnie raised his Bo and backed away.

Leo approached him one… leisurely…. Step… at a time.

Meanwhile, Donnie's mind was racing, what could he do? Try to knock Leo off the catwalk? Try to distract him until Raph recovered? Try to make him angry? He didn't have Mikey's power of annoying or Raph's sharp tongue, The only thing he could think of to do is call Leo a rookie again. And knowing Leo all that would do is provoke the other turtle to give a demonstration of how much of a rookie he wasn't.

"Bookasha!" Mikey tried to swing around and knock Leo off his perch.

Leo stepped back and held out his arm, Mikey swung right into it. Giving a great 'oof' like his stomach had just hit a steel bar.

Leo did something to flip Mikey over the side of the catwalk. Mikey dropped his Nunchuck and the chain clattered around Leo's feet.

Donnie's eye's locked onto the chain. Maybe…

Donnie sheathed his Bo and leaped forward. Rolling along the catwalk under Leo and picking up the chain as he did so.

Leo spun to face him and Donnie backed away while wrapping the chain into a loop.

Leo charged him, attempting to land a hit. Donnie gave ground, back farther and farther away to escape the barrage. This was bad, you didn't want to be the fighter to lose ground, it put your opponent in the position of strength, plus, he was running out of ground to give. If Leo didn't give him an opening soon he'll either be skewered or forced off the catwalk.

Leo got frustrated by the lack of success and tried to kick Donnie in the Face.

Donnie seized the moment, wrapping the chain around Leo's foot and sweeping underneath him, knocking him off his load bearing leg.

Leo fell off the side of the catwalk. Donnie pulled the chain and it went taut. Jerking Leo to a stop and causing him to drop his tanto.

Donnie tied the chain to the catwalk and peered over the side.

Leo jerked around, dangling a few feet off the ground, trying to swing over to the out-of-reach tanto.

The realization came a bit slower to him than usual but when it came Donnie grinned from ear to ear.

"I just beat Leo. I JUST BEAT LEO! AH YEAH!" Donnie jumped around a few times then moonwalked over to the end of the catwalk, before retrieving his sports bag and descending down to meet his brothers.

Raph stood up rubbing his neck and Mikey beamed at him.

Donnie told his brothers to hold Leo still and fished around in his bag for a syringe filled with fluids.

Raph grabbed Leo's arms and held the squirming turtle still as Donnie injected him with the fluid.

"What- what did you just do to me?" Leo asked.

"Just a little tranquilizer," Donnie said. "It's going to make you more manageable."

Leo closed his eyes. "No." He muttered to himself as Raph let him go.

Then his eyes flew open and he gritted his teeth. "NO!"

He quickly ran through the hand gestures so the other turtles couldn't stop him then applied the healing hands to himself in an attempt to destroy the foreign substance in his bloodstream.

As expected he threw up the brain worm.

They all let out of collective sigh of relief, It was finally over.

Raph and Mikey stood on either side of Leo and reached for the chain.

"Let me help you out of there bro," Raph said.

Donnie checked on April and Kairos to make sure they were OK. April woke up on her own and helped Donnie get the crate off Kairos's back. Casey returned triumphant, bubbling over with enthusiasm in his attempt to wow them all with his backwards car chase story.

Donnie listen for a bit then sighed. He turned to leave.

Why did they have to follow him? If they just stayed at home they would have been safe,Leo wouldn't have been traumatized by having his ninja skill reduced to a knife in the back of what he thought was a human man and Raph wouldn't have been stuck a room away trying to figure out how to save his brainwashed baby brother by himself.

He clenched his fists, he couldn't let this happen again.

"Donnie?" Leo asked, noticing how tense he was, "Are you all right."

"No, I'm not all right and you know why? Because this is all your fault!" He snapped at his brothers.

"Donnie." April exclaimed in surprise.

"Don't defend them April! We could have caught Stockman and put things back to rights by now if HE-" He pointed at Leo. " Hadn't crashed the party."

"Donnie I'm sorry I-" Leo started to explain.

"NO! I don't want to hear it, just leave me alone! You hear me! Stay away from me!" He cried.

"Donnie!" April Exclaimed.

"Don't! Just- I need a walk." Donnie turned and strode away. He wanted his brothers back. HIS brothers. Not these dopplegangers. " _If I had been more careful about not letting them follow me, would I be going home tonight?_ " He wondered.

He rounded a corner, trying to decide where to go next.

"Donnie!"

He gritted his teeth harder.

Karios materialized at his side. Donnie didn't let him get a word in before shoving him against a brick wall.

"I've had just enough of you and your shady time apprentice secrecy, WHAT. IS. GOING. ON!" Donnie snapped. Shaking the man a bit for emphasis.

The man looked at him for a moment, the look on his face told Donnie he was deciding whether or not to go there. Then the man frowned.

"what do you know about multiverse theory."

Donnie relaxed and released his hold on the other man.

"Pretty basic stuff, really, there are an infinite number of different universes, a new one born every time an atom moves. If I flip a coin, it will create an infinite number of dimensions where I get heads, an infinite amount of dimensions where I get tales, and an infinite amount of dimensions where I miss the catch all together and the coin bounces across the room and gets wedged under an infinite number of different floorboards."

"Well, alternate dimensions aren't the only kind in the universe, there are also altered dimensions."

"Altered dimensions?"

"Dimensions that aren't perfect splits. Dimension that don't copy their original timeline perfectly, dimensions that alter their timeline or leave things out all together."

"This is an altered timeline then? makes sense, there's just so much missing. So how did I get here?"

"Well, in addition to alternate dimension, and altered dimensions, there is also a third type of dimension, a total mess."

"Mess?"

"Dimensions that copy somethings and alter others, can you imagine a dimension full of hummingbirds with no flowers? Disastrous. It's a discordant reality, If there's going to be any peace in those timelines, something's got to give."

"What do you mean?"

"There was a time anomaly in your timeline, The Shredder was attempting to build a time machine. I went to go check it out and wound up in the crossfire in a turtle-Foot brawl. I'm afraid the Time staff was knocked around in the fight, It had far reaching consequences."

"Like what?"

"It created a cut-off parallel dimension. One where you were never mutated and the Kraang has been held up in their invasion plans."

Donnie stiffened at that, he had always known that his life had been built up on a lot of what-ifs, what if he hadn't been healthy enough to sell as a pet, what if his dad had never moved to New York, what if he had mutated differently. If one of those things had been taken out of play...

"But.. Why am I here then? Did I get knocked here from my original Timeline?"

"Maybe it's best you didn't know."

"You can't tell me this much and not give me the rest."

"You still exist in the other dimension, the Time scepter copied you onto this one when it was hit, that's why you remember things that the others don't. There are several time anomalies that have to be cleaned up so this timeline can stand on it's own... You will eventually be one of them."

"I'm... Just a clone? " Donnie asked, feeling off balance.

"I've been leaving you alone because I think I'm going to need your help to settle the timeline. Somewhere out there is Stockman, and he's planning to build a bridge between timelines... I've managed to stop several things from copying into this timeline... One of which was the Shredder... This machine might rip into the fabric between worlds and allow the Shredder copy to come through."

Donnie sat on the ground and hugged his knees.

"An advanced Shredder vs three inexperienced turtles... I can't let that happen. Wait, what about April and Casey.. Are they doubles too?"

"No, they exist in this world, but since they were close to the staff when it was knocked they got hit. Sometimes split counterparts can get echoes of their other memories stuck in their minds. " Kairos smacked the time scepter against his palm.

I'm going to have to stabilize this time-line."

"And that means getting rid of the reverberations." Donnie buried his head in his knees. "Getting rid of me."

"Unfortunately yes, If you continue to stay here it will begin to affect the time-line, your brothers might even start getting memories from the other timeline if this goes on long enough."

Donnie hugged his knees tighter. "How long do I have?"

" I'll let you stay the longest, I need to round up the other echoes first. I know you probably want to have your final goodbyes... but I'm going to have to ask you to stay away from your brothers, you're affecting their memories enough as it is."

Donnie looked up"Will- will they remember me?"

"No, I'm going to have to wipe their mind of all this."

"April and Casey?" Something twitched in the man's eye. Like he'd hoped they'd be forgotten. He thought hard for a moment then reluctantly added.

"I'm going to have to remove their extraneous memories too. But I suppose you can stay with them, they're going to have a total workover as it is."

Donnie relaxed out of his ball and sat cross-legged. "I- I'll help you find the other echoes. I- I want to make this time-line as safe for my brothers as possible... even if they aren't MY brothers."

"Look at it this way... you'll have defeated the Shredder... and saved your brothers."

"Yeah... I guess." Donnie said, he was barely aware of Kairos leaving him to the stillness.

Donnie straightened his spine and placed his finger together, crossing his legs in a meditative pose.

"I can handle this. I'm a ninja, ninjas aren't supposed to fear death. I'll just meditate until I've made my peace *sniff* Meditation was never my best subject. *sniff* But I'm confident that in my final hours *sniff* I'll- m-manage w-well enough to- to- m-a-ke my father p-r-ou-d," He placed his head in his hands and started to sob.

(end chapter)

This chapter was the hardest one to write, I don't know why, maybe figuring out how the two weakest members of the team could beat the two strongest fighters is more difficult then expected.

I almost commited the cardinal sin of having unoriginal song lyrics in this, the first time I wrote this chapter Mikey was singing A-W-E-S-O-M-E instead of 'sitting in a tree' If that makes you want to see a Mikey amv set to that song I'm here to inform you that such a thing exists.

watch?v=n0JsPKpaG50

If you find it hard to believe that Mikey managed to get the better of Raph not once, but twice, just think of it this way.

Raph was pulling his punches the first time and Mikey used the same strategy he used in 2003 to beat Raph in the Nexus tournament the second time.


	6. Tally

"Are you sure about this Donnie?" April asked again, surprised to be back at the tournament.

"I thought you'd already gotten all the geek stuff you needed." Casey complained.

"I did, but... right now... There's nothing I'd like better than a good brawl."

April frowned, "That sounds like something Raphael would say."

"I think it sounds like fun. Maybe you aren't so lame after all." Casey countered.

They walked onto the tournament grounds and looked up at the announcer.

"Today we have a three on three match, If you will direct your attention to the grounds you will see long wooden pegs sticking out of the ground, those aren't for show ladies and gentlemen. This is a test of balance. If any competitor is knocked off those poles three times they get the boot. Last team standing wins."

Donnie stepped up onto one of the poles and tested his weight on it, it seemed sturdy.

"What are you three doing here?" April asked in amazement.

Don jerked to look at the opposite team.

Leo, Rath , and Mikey were all ascending onto the battlefield.

"We decided to show you once and for all that we aren't newbies." Leo said.

"By following us into another dimension and trying to pick fight with us?"

"Yeah, pretty much. " Rath said, " I'll take the one in the frilly mask."

Donnie squinted at him, amethyst was not a frilly color.

They all separated to their own sides of the arena one on one.

"Why can't you understand the concept of "leave me alone."

"I don't know what's going on, I don't know why you think you need to face it alone, but if the reason you're battling killer robots all by yourself is that you think I'm too weak to handle it then I'm here to prove you wrong."

Donnie tightened his grip on his Bo. Rath was stronger than him true, but he'd had more field experience... so that should even it out... Right?

Donnie charged and executed a complex maneuver. Rath blocked every hit of it.

April wasn't doing much better, She kept trying to hit Leo but he just kept leaning out the way looking amused.

Mikey danced around the arena, singing "can you touch this, can't touch me." while Casey tried to get his footing enough to chase after him. The two collided and both fell off the poles, getting a strike stricken off both of their tallies.

Rath picked Donnie up and threw him on the ground getting a strike smacked of his tally.

Don rolled onto his feet and tried to tackle him, getting thrown onto his back and losing a tally for his effort.

"Give it up, your thing is obviously computers or something, not ninjitsu."

Donnie gritted his teeth. "I am a full fledged, ninja thanks."

"Could have fooled me."

"Ugh, why isn't this working, this Rath should be weaker... No... less experienced and angrier, I'm treating him like a weaker version of my Rath instead of this Rath, that's why I'm losing," Donnie muttered to himself.

"I didn't catch that, are you surrendering?"

Donnie burst out laughing, "Yeah right, Like I'd surrender to a newbie like you. you're just lucky I'm only armed with a Bo staff, Any of my other weapons and I'd have you beat before you took your first breath."

"Oh yeah? Well maybe you'd like to stop the match, get your fancy toys, and see just how well they hold up in a real fight."

"Please, It'd be a waste of time, And besides, I really don't feel like scrubbing newbie muck off my boots, I have things to do, adult things the sewers probably didn't prepare you for..." Donnie stepped back onto the pole and smiled in the most condescending manner he could muster.

"You're really very sheltered." He cooed.

"RRRGG."

"Rath, Don't lose it," Leo warned flipping April off the poles.

"Shut up!"

"Don't tell me to shut up. I'm just trying to-"

"Nag me, It's always my fault isn't it?"

"Guys stop fighting," Mikey said, almost getting knocked off by Casey again as his attention wandered.

"Keep out of - oof." Donnie knocked Rath off his pole with ease.

"Rrrgh. That's it!" Rath rolled onto his feet and leaped at Donnie in a fit of rage.

Using his Bo to balance Donnie countered with a spin kick to his side that knocked him back to the ground. Another tally.

"You're really making me lose my temper, Don. "Rath threatened, rolling around for another strike.

"You aren't the only one with a temper."

(scene break)

 _Rath played with his phone barely noticing when Donnie came in._

 _Donnie beached himself with a sigh. "I've been working nonstop for three days, I really need 30 minutes to relax."_

 _"Yeah yeah, you can change the channel if you want," Rath said smashing the buttons on his phone; who knew you could get tetris on it._

 _The screen went black. Dang. He chucked it back onto the couch next to Don. "Phone 's broken."_

 _Donnie looked up at him incredulously. The next thing he knew he was flying across the room with a string of curses being yelled at him._

 _"Why can't I get five minutes of peace around here without one of you three breaking something! I've been in my lab non-stop trying to work on the mutagen and I get repeatedly interrupted by some new catastrophe."_

 _Rath cringed back into his shell. Usually Mikey or Leo dragged Donnie out of his lab before he overworked himself into one of his states. He knew better than to try to bully him into calming down, it was like throwing gasoline on a grease fire._

 _Donnie screamed for a few more minutes then went silent. Rath poked his head out of his shell._

 _Donnie was ripping open the T -phone and trying to fix it manually, an attempt that quickly degenerated into mashing the thing's buttons in frustration._

 _Getting an idea Rath decided to try a new tactic, climbing back onto the couch he hugged Donnie from behind and leaned his head on his shoulder._

 _Donnie stilled at the touch._

 _"Sorry."_

 _"Ah, It's fine, I just-... It's fine."_

 _"Is this normal workaholism or is this Leo induced workaholism, cause if it is I-"_

 _"No..." his shoulders relaxed. "No... It's not Leo... If I'm perfectly honest I've been staying in my lab so much because I don't want to run into that guy from before again. It seems like I bump into him every time I go out."_

 _"Seriously? That guy's harassing you so much you don't even go out. Well, I'll put a stop to that."_

 _Rath leaped to his feet and marched out putting his hands on his Sai's._

 _"Rath? Rath wait!"_

(end flashback)

"What the... " Rath said.

His attention was distracted by the new mental intrusion so much that Donnie tripped him, sending him face down into the dirt. An alarm told everyone that a competitor had been taken out of the competition.

"Argh," He spat, rolling onto his back.

Donnie pointed his Bo at Rath's face. _"That._ Is why you can't join me. You're going to get mad. And Leo's going to try to lead, And you're going to ignore him. And it's going to get us in trouble, and Mikey's going to lose focus, then somebody's going to get hurt."

"Woah." Leo said, "Donnie beat Rath." He was so surprised by this turn of events that April managed to slam her fan into him while he was listening to Donnie's lecture.

"Argh." Leo leaped right back up and immediately went on the defensive as Don tried to knock him down in a series of quick successive hits.

He blocked them all, but couldn't strike back as each time he had an opening April would send her fan flying through it and he'd have to dodge.

"Dammit, this doesn't prove I can't lead." Leo snapped.

"No, I think last night did that."

"How am I supposed to lead when the people I want to follow me are fighting me instead?"

Aprils fan hit his side, knocking him off.

"You can't."

Rath looked away.

"That's it, no more mister nice guy." Leo leaped back on the field, and this time went full frontal assault, pushing back both Donnie and April with his lightning fast katana strikes.

"Why can't you just accept a bit of help?" Leo snapped.

"That's rich coming from the guy who always expects me to solve everything."

"Solve?"

(flashback)

 _"Where are you going?" "Out." "you can't go out! we need you here. who's going to cure Karai?"_

 _"Why do I have to solve everything? Why can't you solve something for once?"_

(End flashback)

"what.. was that?" Leo wondered. his attention faltered and it resulted in them starting to push him back. Casey and Mikey were scrambling around behind, Mikey kept trying to glance back at the fight behind him and Casey hooked his hockey stick around his ankle and pull him off balance. Ting! Glancing back at the fight behind him he stuck his hockey stick out and Leo walked back into it, tumbling over. "UMMPH!"

Mikey flinched, realizing that his lack of focus had not only lost him a tally but had taken Leo out of the running.

He looked back up at Donnie. "Is that why you left? Was it because Raph is too angry and Leo's too demanding and I... I'm-"

"Just forfeit Mikey."

"Yeah." Casey said, " It's not like you can beat all three of us anyways."

Mikey glanced at the tally counter, all four of them were down to one tally.

His eyes narrowed in determination. " I can focus! And I'm going to prove it by taking you three out." with that he leaped back onto the field.

Casey laughed. "What are you going to charge through all three of us in one-" Mikey surged forward, grabbing him by the arm and throwing him to the ground, he stopped laughing at that.

Donnie and April charged but he glided easily between the two of them.

Donnie spun to face him but, noticing that Mikey had elongated his chucks, swiveled his gaze to find the end of the chain... It was wrapped around April's ankle. With a tug, Mikey pulled her off balance and she fell.

With a flick of his wrist, Mikey shortened his chain so he could use his chucks and spun them around his body, approaching Donnie.

"I'm not going to be a burden."

Donnie inhaled through his nose slowly. "That brings back a memory."

"Yeah, and the weird thing is... I think I remember it too."

(flashback)

 _Doooonnie, Hey you in there?" 'What do you want Mikey?"_

 _"Just to see my bestest bro in all the world... who I haven't seen in like, a week."_

 _"*sigh* come in."_

 _Mikey entered the lab and sat down in the chair next to his brother._

 _"Whatcha doing?" "Working." Leo broke the toaster again?" " I can't understand this, it's like they've been having a stand-off for the last decade, everytime they get close to each other this thing breaks."_

 _Mikey nodded skimming Donnie's notepad absentmindedly. What he saw there stumped him._

 _"Hey Donnie? what's this?"_

 _"DON"T READ THAT!" Donnie dived for the notepad and snatched it up, clutching it tightly._

 _"Dude, did that thing say poison?"_

 _"Well it... yes."_

 _"What's up with that?"_

 _"Well, I, uh... it's just a thought."_

 _"Why would you fill the lair with poison?"_

 _"'Cause of the Foot."_

 _"The Foot?"_

 _"It's just an idea," Donnie said, embarrassed. "It occurred to me that if the Foot ever invaded, Leo would evacuate us, then the lair would be empty..."_

 _"Except for the Foot... And maybe you."_

 _"Me?"_

 _"It doesn't take a genius to figure out that's why you're researching how to build up poison immunity. I know you and Leo both made evacuation plans together. And I know that while you haven't admitted it to each other, both of you have mentally put yourselves at the end of the evacuation list."_

 _"Yeah, probably."_

 _I don't like this plan."_

 _"Ok Mikey, poison gas is a no go."_

 _"If anyone should be pulling risky stunts like that and making themselves sick trying to beat the foot it should be me."_

 _"What? You? Why you?"_

 _"Rath's the strongest, Leo's the leader. You're the brains. What am I? I'm the extra."_

 _"Don't say that."_

 _"No it's true, You guys could limp along without me, we wouldn't last two days without you."_

 _"You aren't replaceable, or extendable."_

 _"But you and Leo aren't either, you sometimes act like you are, though, Rath too."_

 _"Hmm. maybe we set a bad example."_

 _"I won't be a burden."_

 _"You aren't. And hey, remember," Donnie ruffled his non-existent hair," you're the one that makes me a big brother, and if anything happens to you I won't have that anymore. Try to remember that anytime you get the urge to be stupidly noble, OK?"_

 _(end flashback)_

Mikey narrowed his eyes and charged.

Donnie blocked his blows, hit by hit, they weren't gaining any ground on each other.

Mikey unfurled his chain and whipped it out, wrapping the length of it around Donnie's Bo.

'I'm sorry Mikey.' Donnie thought, predicting what was going to happen next.

Mikey yanked the chain, attempting to jerk Donnie into a game of tug-a-war. Expecting this, Donnie let go of the Bo instead. As Mikey was forced to rebalance to compensate for the lack of expected pull Donnie jumped in the air and landed a spin kick to Mike's chest.

He saw Mikey expression change from surprise to realization to anguish as the other turtle realized he'd lost. He didn't even try to catch himself as he fell and landed hard, scraping back a foot along the ground. He twitched a moment then rolled onto his knees and bowed his head.

"I- I'm sorry," He teared up, " I tried-"

Leo and Rath crawled over to him and put their hands on his shoulders.

"It's OK, Mikey, you did better than the two of us," Leo assured.

Rath didn't say anything, but he looked at Donnie out of the corners of his eyes in a way that told Don he'd understood. Donnie's prediction of how their battles would turn out came true. Donnie was just glad they discovered their flaws in a practice fight this time and not in a real battle. What didn't occur to him until later was that, for them, this was an important fight.

And they'd lost.

(scene break)

"That was kind of harsh." April observed as they left the sewers.

"Well, it's better for them to learn it in there than in the field," Donnie said, "You were there from the start but you weren't a Kunonich yet, you didn't see all the times we 'bungled all our Bangels' as Mike'd say."

"Maybe not, but I did see you guys fighting sometimes, and whatever problem you guys faced you faced it together, I always thought your greatest strength was your team work."

It was, and for the other three it would be again, but not for Donnie, and they were really better off not learning to depend on him so much. Donnie mentally flinched at all the times he complained that the others never helped him with things or even bothered to learn how to do things themselves. It looked like they'd be getting a crash course soon enough. The thought made him slightly ill.

"Too bad, Are you sure we couldn't get Rath at least? He might not be as experienced but I bet he's still fun." Casey said.

Donnie held back another mental wince. Casey and Rath were best friends. When the memories of him were stripped would the turtles and the humans forget each other too? He hoped not.

Donnie led then out of the sewer back onto the street and checked his scanner. " I talked to Kairos again. He mentioned Time anomalies, we need to find them and catch them with the Amulet he left us."

"So that's what that thing does."

"Yeah, And I think I'm picking up a new one."

"You sure about doing this alone, The guys could really help."

" _Well, they'll have to learn to do things on their own._ " Donnie wanted to snap, but he held his tongue, maybe she wouldn't remember him, But he didn't want to taint any temporal echoes of him that would remain in her with Snideness.

They piled into Casey's car and rode off.

(end chapter)

This was the first chapter I wrote actually, looking back it kind of clashes with the overall tone of the fic a bit. The angst gets dragged out more then intended, and the poisoned lair idea was a little dark in retrospect. But I think it establishes the return of the turtle's memories well, and it is a good fight scene, so it still has merit.


	7. The mall

Special thanks to Pilyarquitect for following and favoriting this fic, then reviewing each chapter individually. So far, you've been the only person to do so and reading your reviews makes my day.

To answer your question, yes there is another Donnie. Since the tmnt universe is a multiverse there are actually an infinite number of Donnies. But for this fic we're just going to focus on the adventures of this one for the moment. Thank you for reviewing.

(start chapter)

"A mall? I thought we were going to fight some more. Not go shopping." Casey scoffed.

"This is where the new reading are coming from, and I did promise to try to help with the Anomalies."

"I'm sure this won't take long, Casey," April said.

"Whatever, maybe we'll run into something cool again." He hopped over the velvet railing leading to the entrance and tapped his foot impatiently until Donnie could crack the lock.

The inside of the mall was humongous. Four large stairways wrapped around a platform with a large Christmas tree perched on it, Two of them were escalators.

Donnie popped up his palm top and looked up what he could on the mall.

"This mall is pretty new. It's gotten some news coverage for showcasing some kind of new jewelry made out of, get this, meteorite."

"You think, that space rock might have come from cross-dimension instead of cross-planet?" April asked.

"Could be, let's go look at it."

Stopping briefly to examine the large map beside the staircases they made their way up to the top level of the mall.

"Man, this mall is huge, It feels like we've been walking up stairs for hours," Casey moaned.

"It hasn't even been 15 minutes." April rejoined.

"That doesn't sound right."

"I think it's right up here," Donnie said coming to the top of the staircase.

The sight of a squad of Kraang greeted him at the top floor.

The two humans peered around him at them.

"Uh, Donnie." April asked as the Kraang stopped what they were doing to watch them. "Did we have a plan for this?"

"Uh, well, I'll distracted them, and you two RUN!"

They all dived out of the way of the laser blasts.

"What type of plan is that!"

"It's plan ' stay alive long enough to regroup outside and come up with a real plan!'"

"Catchy, We'll meet you outside."

(Scene break)

Raphael stared at the phone sitting in front of him, waiting for it to move.

Leo paced around the kitchen table.

"There's got to be something we can do to prove we're just as good out there as he is."

Mikey stuck his hand in the air.

"Maybe we could enter more tournaments on those games. Leveling up always works in video games.

"Real life isn't a video game Mikey. I mean, that might work. but how many levels would we have to get for him to take us back?" He noticed Raph staring at something in front of him.

"What's that?"

"It's some kind of communicator thing Donnie made for that Casey kid, Case gave it to me after we got our butts handed to us."

He shoved the phone away and put his face on the table. "Eh, they'll probably never call."

The phone rang and he snatched it up before the end of the first chime.

"Guys?"

"CASEY WHERE ARE YOU! You were right behind me a moment ago, what gives!"

"April? Where are you?"

"Raph? We're in that new mall northwest of the Digorno on second- AGH! Help!"

"We're on our way!" Come on guys!"

(Scene break)

Donnie perched on the roof, looking this way and that.

"Where are they?" He asked himself. "They should have gotten out by now."

He frowned. "Something must have happened, I need to go back in."

He rolled himself into a hand stand and then swung himself in through a window feet first.

Just in time to miss seeing the other three turtles run up to the building.

"Did she say what was in there?" Leo asked.

"Nope, and no time to stake the place out." Raph snapped, unwilling to let his brother get a word in edgewise. He could just wind up suggesting they hang back to do recognizance or something.

"Just being cautious."

"There's a time for caution and a time for- " He kicked the door open, "Tiny pink aliens with lasers?"

Three Kraang in tiny saucers flew around April trying to shoot her with lasers.

She leaped onto one and managed to knock it down.

She rolled onto the platform with the tree and threw her fan.

"It's nice of you guys to stop by." She quipped.

The fan knocked another Kraang out of the air and returned to her hand.

The third Kraang fired at her feet.

April backed away from the blasts, a little bit too far away, she fell over the side of the platform.

"I'll save you April!" Mikey said, flinging himself on his back under her.

She fell on his stomach as he went by and they both spun on Mikey's shell until the momentum cut out enough for them to come to a stop.

Raph and Leo each picked a flight of stair to run up.

One of the Kraang April had knocked out of the air grew a set of legs out of its saucer, and hit a button at the top of the escalator Raph was running up.

The escalator jerked as it started moving down. Raph jerked with it and was forced to adjust his gait to keep from slamming a foot into the moving stairway.

Leo bounded up his stairway and up the tree. Landing on the last still-airborne Kraang.

He thought he could knock it out of the air like April did, But this one must have had an upgraded model, or just faster reflexes, and hit a button on its console.

A rocket flared to life on the other side of the saucer and it took off like a shot, dive bombing the stairs till Leo's shell hit the side of the railing and he was dragged along the side of the rails all the way down. His shell making a clacking noise like a boy running a stick along the side of a fence. They ratcheted off the railing and the Kraang ran him into the floor, trying to grind him into submission.

Leo placed his feet on the bottom of the saucer and pushed up. Sending the Kraang flying into the wall behind him.

Raph made it over the side of his staircase and kicked the other Kraang off the platform.

A rumbling noise behind him caught his attention.

He glanced behind himself to see the tree falling towards him. He tried to leap out of its way, but it crashed on his back, pinning him against the platform.

The third Kraang clawed its way toward him, it's back legs crushed by the blow from April's fan and scraping a nail and chalkboard symphony as it dragged itself forward.

It raised a claw to pierce his shell with and Raph caught it.

He caught the second claw too and they pressed against each other.

The fleshy creature opened it's mouth to reveal several rows of shark teeth. It pressed toward him, snapping its jaws like it wanted to rip his face off.

Raph opened his mouth and snapped back, closing his teeth together with an audible click that made the thing cringe away from him. So it pressed a button and a small barrel raised itself out of the saucer and pointed itself at Raph's face, glowing a soft pink.

Raph twisted the right claw, snapping it off, then shoved it in the barrel and used his now free hand to punch the thing into submission.

"Casey!" April called from below.

They all turned to look at the left entrance.

A large blue ape-like thing lurched into the room. A Kraang piloted it from inside the safety of a glass dome and Casey hung limply from it, slung off the shoulder like a fireman's catch.

"I'll save you, bro!" Mikey called, charging.

"Look out for the butt cannons!" April warned as it turned around.

"Butt cannons?" all the turtle asked in unison.

Mikey leaped out of the way in time to avoid the blast.

April pitched her fan right through the glass, knocking the kraang off her perch.

Mikey swung Casey off the bot and laid him down so April could examine him.

"I'll take him home, here take this to Donnie. He might need it." She said, handing Leo the black amulet.

"I'll take it to him, what is it?"

"I'm... not really sure, I just have a sense that it might help."

Leo nodded.

"Uh, little help?" Raph asked.

"Come on Mikey, let's get that log off Raph and go get Donnie."

(scene break)

Donnie was on the top floor peering into the jewelry store front-windows.

No Kraang. something was very off.

He approached the next window and peered in. A small knickknack store. Nothing of note in there.

He turned to examine the store behind him and nearly jumped out of his shell at the sight of April standing behind him.

"April! You startled me. Where's Casey?"

"I don't know, he was right behind me and just disappeared." She said a little bit too cheerfully.

"I... see." Donnie said. He crossed the room to look in the opposite store front. A music store.

"Where do you think the Kraang went?" Donnie asked.

"I don't know, they just disappeared." She said, still smiling overmuch.

Donnie's eyes slide across the room as he considered this. His gaze fell on an electrical panel on the far wall. He smiled and made his way to it. "Hey, I bet I could flush them out with this."

"How are you going to do that Donnie?" She asked, all doe-eyed.

"You should have more faith in your boyfriend April. They don't call me Donald the great for nothing."

"Oh, you're right Donald, I shouldn't question you."

He pulled off the case and ripped out a sparking wire. Then he grabbed the bots hand and shoved it into the wiring.

The bot convulsed as a thousand bolts ran through it. Donnie made a break for it, but the Bot swung its arm into him and sent him flying through the Music store front-window.

He shattered the glass and smashed into a cabinet of violins.

"Ugh." He rolled to his feet and raised his Bo in defensive position.

April stepped through the window onto a display table. "That wasn't very nice, Donald."

Donnie studied the Kraang bot a moment. "You know. I feel kind of bad."

"It was quite rude."

"Not about that. About you."

"Why would you feel bad about me?"

"I heard about what happened to your planet. A mutant Utron named Kraang came and took over didn't he. Can you even remember if you're a boy or girl."

She smiled, It was the nicest way she could bare her teeth at him.

"Oh, how cute, he has a heart. I wonder if it'll bleed as much when I pull it out of your chest."

"You know, If I had any way to save you... I would."

"Oh, I'm flattered. Not enough to spare you. But flattered."

She lunged at him. He deployed the blade from his Bo and crossed her. She swung at him. He ducked under her and scraped his blade across her side. Finding a groove he dug it in until the panel snapped off and kept shoving until he ripped it off her stomach.

They passed each other and spun back to face each other.

The Kraang in her stomach had been exposed. It should only take one good hit to take it out.

He lunged. But she was faster. She gripped his Bo and threw him over her head back into the cabinet, smashing it into even smaller bits then it had been in before.

He opened his eyes to see her standing over him, foot raised.

She was about to slam her foot down on his plastron when a sword went right through her and she was yanked back.

Donnie pushed himself into a sitting position and resisted the urge to rub his eyes.

"Karai?"

"Hey Donnie, miss me?" Karai asked.

The April doppelganger growled and picked up a guitar.

"Well, I _could_ take you out faster with my Tanto," She sheathed her sword and picked up a guitar, "But how often does a girl get an opportunity to fight like this?"

Leo and his team made it up the last flight of steps. Leo halted and held out his arms to keep his brother from passing him as April blasted her way out of a store trying to whack another girl who darted out of her way like a shadow shot from a bow.

"Is April fighting a Stock-bot?"

"DUDE! APRIL HAS A BRAIN IN HER STOMACH!"

"That's not April. And that's not a Bot, that's a flesh and blood girl... Who has really nice moves for someone who uses a bulky guitar as their weapon of choice."

Karai danced around the April-bot, making it impossible for it to club her with its guitar.

She slid beside it and smashed her guitar upward, knocking it off its feet.

Karai placed a foot on the bot and raised her guitar crying "FORE!" Slamming the instrument into the Krang like a golf club, she knocked it out of its cavity and through a window.

"Woah, that was nice work, miss?" Leo left the question hanging.

"Karai. Don't you guys recognize me? Donnie did."

"Thanks for the save, Karai." Donnie said. climbing out of the store front window.

"It was nothing."

"Donnie? How do you know this girl? And why does she look like Stockman's bots?"

"Bots?"

"This is my older sister, Karai."

"OLDER SISTER!?" The other turtles cried as one.

"Whats wrong with them?"

"The time anomalies messed with their heads, they won't remember you, they don't even remember me."

"Harsh."

"Why are you here?"

"Kairos sent me here to stop... Stockman!" Karai dropped her smashed-up guitar and ran toward the Jewelry store.

Stockfly buzzed over the jewelry cases, collecting pieces of rock.

Karia leaped over the cases at him, Tanto Raised.

Stockfly soared over her out of reach. And pulled out a small box with a button on it.

He pressed the button and a deafening buzzing filled the air.

Karai spun on her heel and leaped back at him.

A swarm of flies flooded into the room obscuring everyone's vision.

Stockfly flew out as they swatted at biting insects.

"Stop him!" Karai screamed hoarsely.

"I can't get a clear shot- *hack**sputter*"

Stockfly flew out through the hole the Kraang left after Karai punted it through the window.

Leo sputtered. "We'll never get rid of these flies!" He exclaimed. He spat out the flies that flew into his mouth and covered his mouth and nose, then closed his eyes.

"Psst."

He opened one eye slightly. "What was...?"

He scanned the room out of the corner of his eye. Something he couldn't put his finger on drew his attention to the amulet around his neck.

He reached for the amulet and held it up. Tentatively he traced a finger around the edge of it and discovered it had a clasp on the side. He undid the clasp and flipped open the amulet.

A large white light exploded out of it and sucked all of the flies in before shutting.

"What was that!?"

"Wow." Mikey exclaimed.

"Wow, indeed. But we still lost Stockfly!" Karai exclaimed.

"What was Stockfly after?" Donnie asked.

Some Kraang machine-part, Donnie," she got right up next to him and stared him right in the face.

"He's trying to bring Shredder into this dimension."

"Shredder!? He can do that?"

"Yes, and we have to stop him."

"Do you guys want to tell us what's going on?" Raph asked.

"Uh, sorry guys, maybe you guys should sit this one out." Donnie said hurriedly. "Well, what's our next move Karai?"

"Come with me." She commanded, and without waiting for an answer made a break for the stairs. Donnie followed right on her heels.

"Great, we come all the way up here and they ditch us first chance they get." Raph grouched.

"Something's not right guys, I think it's time we a had a little conference with our other new friends." Leo said. He looked back down at his amulet, considered it, then snapped the clasp shut.

(End chapter)

According to the tmnt wiki, Karai is Donatello's height (approximately).

Has anyone else missed this? I need to look at them more closely next time they have a scene together.

Also apparently her snake form has an official name- Kiba. But it never made it into the script.

Ok ok, Take a look at this Karai amv

watch?v=lLBzvNQJyEM&list=LLyvpdxka4Snn6YRGI8KDomA&index=109

THEN, mute it, then play it again while playing "Aurelio Voltaire - The Mechanical Girl " in the background, this is great you have to try it.


	8. Church

They smashed their way unceremoniously through the entrance to the lair.

April was there with a groaning Casey, holding an ice pack to his head.

"Hey, April, Do you know anything about a girl named Karai?" Leo asked, skipping straight to the point.

"Karai?" April asked, as Master Splinter entered the room. "What is she doing around?"

"She came in for a last minute save and tried to take down a large fly mutant."

"Stockman. Was she sentient?"

"What? Of course, why wouldn't she be?"

"It's... Complicated."

"Well, uncomplicate it."

"Is she really Donnie's older sister?" Mikey asked.

Splinter stopped dead. "Miwa." He whispered.

"Well, yeah, I guess, But they have kind of an estranged relationship. You guys might want to be careful, she had a rough life, and more often than not she's bad news."

"April." Splinter said, ghosting up beside her and placing his hands on his staff. "I don't know how often we've spoken, but you respect me, do you not?"

"What? Why-? Of course, I do."

"Then show me respect by granting me the truth. Donatello is my son isn't he?"

"What? How-?" She smiled. "I should have known it wouldn't take you long to figure that out. No way you guys could ever stay split for long. Yes, Yes he is."

"And Mi- Karai, She is my daughter?"

April's smile melted off her face. "Yes... Karai is Miwa... But she didn't live with you her whole life like Donnie did. She was raised by Shredder."

Splinters eyes widened. "NO!"

April winced, "She only found out the truth about herself recently, and she's been gunning for Shredder ever since. Revenge is that girl's middle name. I just hope she didn't drag Donnie into anything too heavy."

"And Shredder?" Splinter demanded. "Is he in New York?"

"I don't know... Probably. That snake never stays away when he could be someplace he isn't wanted."

"I must go and find them at once." Splinter announced.

"We're coming too." Leo added.

Splinter slammed his cane with a loud crack that filled the air like a whip." NO! I won't allow it! It's too dangerous!"

"Sensi please, We can help."

"Yeah, I can find Donnie with the tracker option I found while messing around with Raph's phone." Mikey added.

Raph checked the pocket on his weapons belt. "Hey, how'd you get that?"

"We promise, we'll be careful."

Splinter closed his eyes while considering this. "Perhaps it would be best for you to come, I might need your help convincing them to come home. But you must follow all of my instructions to the letter."

"Hai Sensi." They all agreed.

Splinter swept out of the lair swiftly. The turtle close on his heels. Leo made to follow suit, but something stopped him. He looked down at the locket around his neck and picked it up.

He turned it around and around in the palm of his hand. It felt like something was beckoning him from within there. It felt like something wanted him to open up the pendant. It felt like the amulet was almost speaking to him.

"Leo?"

Leo almost jumped out of his skin when April spoke to him. "Why aren't you following Master Splinter?" She asked.

"I... I'm going now." He walked over to April and took the amulet off his neck."Can you watch this for me April, something about it is... Distracting."

"Uh, sure."

He handed her the pendant and sped up to catch his family.

(scene break)

"The only thing I can't figure is how we're going to find him." Karai muttered.

"I've got that covered." Donnie said, following the map on his arm computer.

"Where are you leading us, Donnie?"

"Before we left the mall, I took the receipt book off the back desk. It had a sale in it for a very hefty sum to one Fitz Xander. So I googled him and he's a philanthropist who just donated a rare space-gem-embedded cross to his church. Right about... Here." He looked up to see the church across the street from them.

"I'm impressed. Nice work." Karai said.

Getting into the church was easy, even getting into the vault wasn't that hard. The people in charge of security must have had other more important things on their minds than protecting their material possessions.

"Now what?"

"I don't know... Maybe we could wait and see if he comes for it?"

"Who knows how long that could take, If he even wants the gem at all."

"Hmmm. How about this... I'll put a tracker into the gem, then if someone comes to pick it up, we can just follow it to him."

Karai smiled. "Now that's a plan."

Donnie put a tracker in the cross. "Now the only other question is... If he doesn't come for it, what's plan B?"

Karai smacked her fist into her palm."Maybe if we hang around Shredder's old haunts something will turn up."

"Maybe... Or maybe- Did you hear something?"

They turned to face the door. It opened. Splinter glided into the room.

"Sensi? What are you doing here?" Donnie asked.

"Donatello, I've been looking for you, and you've got Stockman's Gem. Take it with you and follow me."

"Let me come too." Karai said.

"No, I want to keep this between me and Don."

"What? But I can help."

"Sensi." Donnie said, then trailed off, wondering whether or not to go there or not. " Karai is Miwa."

"Leave her here, I need someone who can keep up with me." Splinter said curtly.

Karai flinched and hugged herself.

Donnie paused. "Didn't you hear what I just said?"

"I heard you, and I don't have time for this, take the gem and follow me."

Donnie nodded. "I see. Sensi... " He reached into his weapon belt pocket and held three throwing stars between his knuckles. "There's something on your face."

He slashed the stars across Splinter's face, tearing off the artificial fur to reveal the mechanical parts underneath. " This is getting old."

The bot punched a fist at him, He put up a palm to block the blow. An unnecessary gesture, Karai swung her foot upward, kicking the bot off balance.

It staggered a few steps over, then spun, slamming its tail into Donnie and smashing him across the room through the door.

He flew over the railing behind it and plummetted into the sermon hall below. Splintering a group of benches.

Karai grabbed the bot's tail, but one push of its powerful mechanical muscles sent it soaring out the doorway with her dragging behind it.

Donnie groaned and opened his eyes slowly. Only to see a giant pair of gnashing teeth sailing right at him.

Donnie rolled onto his hands and leaped away, gasping as he tripped over a stair before his ninja training kicked in and he threw out his hands and flipped back onto his feet.

The rat-bot landed on all fours and pounced again, dragging a straining Karai after it.

Karai realized that this strategy wasn't working and let go. She pulled out her tanto and flung it. Sending it flying into the rat-bot's neck. This, however, did nothing to slow it down.

Donnie leaped on top of an altar and pulled out his throwing stars. Sending them into the bots synthetic skin and ripping most of it off.

Donnie moved fast, leaping off the altar seconds before the bot smashed it into wreckage.

Karai bounded past, grabbing the Tanto and wrenching it, twisting the Rat-bots head off its neck where it hung, dangling from a small stretch of synthetic skin.

Donnie and Karai backed away from the sparking mess. Donnie heard a clunk from above.

He looked up to see another Rat bot clinging to the ceiling above, and a horde of Karai bots swarming into the building like spiders.

Donnie pulled out the cross he'd tucked into his belt. "You take care of nearly-Headless Nick, I'll lead these other bots into the city and lose them.

"Sounds like a plan to me, just don't take too long, I'll have this finished in a jiffy. Hyaa!" Karai charged the sparking monstrosity before her. Donnie raised the cross above his head and waved it. "You guys want it? Come and get it!"

The second Splinter bot pounced, Donnie slid out of its way and made a break for a dumbwaiter inserted in a wall cavity to his right. It seemed like an odd thing to have in a church, but he didn't complain as he shoved himself into it, hitting the back of it with a hard slam. That must have jostled something in it loose because it shot downward like one of its pulleys had snapped.

Donnie gritted his teeth when the waiter hit the basement floor, sending reverberation through his shell and arms that were really going to smart later when he stopped moving long enough for his adrenaline to tap out.

He shoved himself out of the waiter in time to miss being smashed under the Rat bot's feet when it landed on the waiter, crushing it into the bot's trademark splintered mass.

He darted across the room, eyes skipping over most of the objects in it till they landed on the ceiling.

Most of the basement was below ground, but it had high ceilings, and the top of it was just high enough above-ground that the architect put in a row of small windows to line the top. One of them was open.

Swinging his Bo, he pole vaulted himself up to the window, grabbing hold of and swinging through it in one swift motion.

He was slightly proud of himself for managing to squeeze through such a small space so smoothly.

He chanced a look back and saw the Karai bots swarming into the basement like a horde of ants through the dumbwaiter cavity.

Then he nearly leaped out of his shell as the Rat bot slammed itself into the window, wedging itself up to its elbows.

It flexed its machinery. Stretching tears in the sill and threatening to rip it out.

Donnie fled across the street, pole vaulting across a truck onto a rooftop.

He raced across the building and darted through alleys and squeezed through crevices.

Employing a few gymnastics to get on top of a telephone pole he paused, blending into the shadows.

Nothing moved but the wind, Nothing made a sound except for the wind chime someone had hung on their apartment patio.

His eye caught a movement down the street, but it was just a lady walking her dog, he watched them go, then returned to scanning.

" I should find a way to circle back to Karai." He thought to himself, turning to leave.

He only caught a glimpse of the Rat-bot's tail before it sent him flying through the air.

He pulled his limbs into his shell, crashed through a window, bounced around the inside of the building like a hockey puck then finally slammed into something that stopped him.

Groaning, he flopped out of his shell to try and get his bearings. He was under a desk.

He peeked over to scan his surroundings.

Far in front of him was a smashed store front window, right behind that was a pair of mannequins posing the latest women's fashions.

Behind that was a minefield of shrapnel and clothing. He felt sorry for whoever had to clean up this mess.

The Karai bot started to climb in through the window. Donnie ducked back behind the desk.

He turned around and started to crawl away. "Maybe I can get away without being seen." He thought, hoping fervently.

It wasn't impossible, the coat racks were circular and plentiful, this was as good as a park-full of bushes.

Watching for an opening he rolled out from the desk behind a cardboard cut out of some teen idol he didn't recognize.

Peeking through the space between the teen's side and the crook of their arm, he waited for an opportunity then rolled himself into a rack of clothing.

Getting on all fours, he scurried from rack to rack, curling into his shell whenever a bot came too close.

Scooting onward he spotted a back door.

"Almost there. " He thought to himself. Straightening up, he grabbed a mannequin's hand to pull himself up with, surprisingly sturdy.

He glanced to make sure none of the bots were coming for him, then started for the door.

The mannequin's hand clutched his in a crushing grip. Its head turned around to reveal glowing eyes.

Donnie gasped. For the Bot to actually put on a dress and pose as a mannequin betrayed an ability to adapt that was a fantastic feat of engineering. One that bode really badly for him.

The blue-sundress-and-bonnet-decked bot shoved him backward.

Another bot jumped out of a rack and kicked him into the fist of a hidden third that knocked him into the blow of a hidden fourth.

For a moment he was tossed back and forth, staggering away from one blow only to fall into the path of another.

Gripping his Bo he swept downward, knocking the bots off their feet and making a break for the door.

He broke through it into the stairway, leaping down a floor, he shot through a window and swung himself into the next building. A parking garage.

He ran alongside the cars until he spotted one that was mercifully unlocked and threw himself in it.

The middle seats had been taken out and the back seat was covered in blankets. He yanked the blankets off the seat onto himself and huddles under them. Waiting.

He heard the clicking of the mechanical gears as the bots moved past his hiding place and spread out to search for him.

He didn't move, didn't even breath until they were gone.

He stayed there for a moment longer. Praying that their sensors couldn't pick him up through the metal of the car and they weren't laying in wait to ambush him.

Finally, he pulled the blankets off and dared to look out. Nothing, all quiet.

He exited the car and tiptoes back the way he came. Once out of the garage, he slipped into the sewers and started to run back to the church full pelt.

"I hope that bot didn't give Karai too much trouble."

"Donatello." Splinter said, materializing next to him and stopping him with a palm on the shoulder.

"AAAGH!" Donnie screamed, then planted his Bo to ground himself as he lifted his legs up to triple kick Splinter in the jaw before spinning away. Bouncing off a wall and landing in the water up to his shins. He made a break for it, but was stopped by a large weight slamming into his back and dragging him down.

He fell face first into the water, and struggled, The water was only just high enough to cover his body if he lay down on his stomach, but that was enough to drown him.

Whatever was on his back grabbed him and dragged him up above water.

"Donnie! What has gotten into you? You just kicked Master Splinter!"

"Leo?" Donnie twisted around to see Leo on his back and the other two turtles flanking an irate Master Splinter. "Guys?"

"What the heck was that all about?" Raph asked.

"I would like to know that myself." Splinter said, rubbing his jaw.

"You guys scared the living daylights out of me! I thought you were another Stock-bot."

Splinter's irritation melted away and his face smoothed out. "Ah, I see. I apologize, I didn't mean to give you a scare."

Leo got off him and he stood up shaking the sewer gunk out of his Bo staff.

Leo and the other turtles shared a look and Leo addressed Donnie nervously. "Donnie, we think it's time you came home."

"Home?" Donnie asked, puzzled about what their concept of that could be when they didn't know where he lived. "What do you mean?"

They shared another look and Raph groaned. "Do we have to keep hitting around the bush about this? We know, Donnie. We know who you are. We figured it out the first day we met you."

Mikey walked forward. " Come here Bro." He opened his arms wide and enveloped Donnie in a hug. Donnie hugged him back. "You guys know?"

"Yeah, and we want you back." Leo added.

"I'd like to come back guys, but it's not that simple." He pushed Mikey away gently. "It wasn't my choice for this to happen, but we've got a lot of temporal anomalies popping up and causing trouble, and I promised I'd help contain it."

"We'd like to help." Leo said, even now he still retained that habit of speaking for the team.

"It's too dangerous. You weren't there, you didn't see the things we did, we had to accumulate ourselves to all the new opponents and dangers we came across gradually, if we had to face them thrown at us all at once we would have drowned. I'm the only one here who still remembers what to expect."

"Tell us." Leo pushed.

"I... Oh... There's just too much."

Splinter came forward. "Then answer a question of mine. What do you know of Shredder?"

"Shredder? That guy has always been bad news, Hounded us without rest. I'd have been toast if I'd had to face him by myself."

"By yourself?" Splinter asked, voice strained, " You mean you've faced him with others?"

"Yeah, we've all had a brush with him before, Leo's the only one who's fought him by himself."

Donnie didn't mention the three-month coma that followed that, but he didn't have to. Splinters eyes widened with horror anyway.

"Noo! Noooo!" He gasped, " I would never let that happen."

"This is what I'm trying to say." Donnie rushed to explain. "We weren't- you aren't equipped to handle what I'm going to face, We only got to that place through lots of painful experiences. I can't take you along with me when I go to stop Shredder!"

Splinter froze, A statue poised in a state of petrified horror.

Donnie kicked himself, he had let himself get too complacent. He'd forgotten this wasn't wasn't his father he was talking to. But a temporal echo of the man his father once was.

As mature as the old rat was, he still had a few lessons to learn as well. One of them was trust in his students' abilities.

He should have been able to guess what this Splinter's reaction would be after watching his own Splinter go through the same thing. The terror. Desperation. It had only lasted a few weeks in his own time. But that was time he didn't have to indulge his father with now.

"You don't understand, I've fought him before."

"I do understand! And I'm amazed you managed to come out alive!"

"Look, I know we always thought that Leo would be the one to kill Shredder, and I'm the weakest of the team, But I can do this! I can the family protector for once! Like how Leo and Raph protect us."

"Leonardo! Raphael! Please tell me I didn't ask them to fight Oroku Saki?" Splinter asked, looking mortified.

"Well, not exactly... But it was tacitly implied." Donnie said, folding his arm nervously and looking away. This was more feelings-talk than he was comfortable having after growing up in a home where feelings were usually communicated through koans or low-key violence.

Splinter put one palm on Donnie's shoulder and the other on his cheek.

"Donatello, look at me. I do not know what happened to you in that other timeline. But I would NEVER ask this of you."

"But so much happened in there, I... Oh.. You wouldn't understand."

Donatello I am begging you to understand. Whatever mistakes I've made, I'm sure I never intended to give the impression-"

Donnie shoved him away. "No! You don't understand! How could you? You aren't even him! You're just an echo of the person he used to be. I need to do this, Its the only way I'll get them back!"

He turned and ran, tears streaming down the side of his face. What was he thinking? They weren't coming back. They weren't what was out of place. He was the thing out of place.

He caught a sliver of movement out of the corner of his eye from another tunnel, and managed to twist out of the way just in time to avoid the second Splinter's claws.

The animatronics claws missed him and scratched a deep etch into a sewer wall, tearing off the synthetic fur on its hands.

It lunged and he held up his Bo to block its paws, so it bit the stick in half.

He yanked the Bo back and tried to hit it with his Bo halves like they were batons.

The Bo's hit Splinter-bot's palms with a smack and came to a standstill.

The rat-bots tail slammed him into a wall, and before he could get back up it wrapped around his neck and dragged him underwater.

He flailed and gagged, sucking a mouthful of fetid water.

Then the tail jerked him sideways, something had slammed into the Rat bot, dragging it away from him.

He pushed himself out of the water, coughing and sputtering. To his left, Splinter attacked his doppelganger. "I. am. sick. to. death. of. seeing. myself. attack. my. son." Splinter said, emphasizing each word with a blow that took off a shred of synthetic skin and sent sparks flying.

He heard sparking and sputtering coming from the third tunnel and let his eyes drift over to the source.

The Karai bots were making their way into the tunnels.

They spotted him and charged.

One of them leaped to strike him head-on.

He groped around the fetid water, fumbling for his Bo halves.

Raph flew past him, impaling the bot on his Sais.

Mikey wrapped three of them in a tight bind with his chain so Leo could fly by and dispatch them with a swipe.

He found his Bos and straightened up into a defensive position.

The dressed-up Karai bot lurched out of the water catching him by surprise.

"I knew that adaptability feature was going to cause me trouble." He thought.

It snatched the cross from his belt and kicked him in the stomach, winding him.

Before he could catch his breath it swung another kick his way, smashing him into the wall.

It dashed away from the melee, past Splinter and through the tunnels.

He sucked in a breath as best he could and followed it. sliding around the chaos and slipping into the tunnel after it.

(scene break)

Karai bounded up the side of the church, leaping high she landed on the large church bell and rocked it back and forth. Throwing a dagger at the top she cut the cord holding it in place and rode it as it flung away from the church, smashing through the Splinter bot and careening down toward the street.

(scene break)

Leo pushed forward advancing on the Bot, It pushed back.

It was really strange, fighting something who resembled a real girl he'd met just a few hours ago. A girl who could be his sister. The world had managed to get really strange in just a matter of days.

The Karai bot pressed into him- metal muscles vs mutant strength. He got impatient and swept its legs out from underneath it before plunging his blade into its chest.

"Hey give that back! "

Donnie bolted down a tunnel after another bot. Leo's heart beat sped up. he turned to chase the other turtle. "Don, Wait!"

Leo only made it to Master Splinter before something heavy smashed through the ceiling of the tunnel, blocking half the tunnel with its bulk and collapsing the other half under rubble.

"NOO!" Splinter cried. He stopped in his grief just long enough for the Bot to make a lunge for him.

Leo intercepted it and sliced it in two.

Splinter spotted a sewer grate embedded in the rubble, he darted over and grasped the bars.

"Donatello, Donatello!"

Donnie appeared on the other side of the grate. "I'm *cough* fine. But the bot got away."

"Stay there, I'm ordering you, I'll find a way around." Splinter said firmly.

Donnie seemed to wilt under his gaze. "But Sensi."

"Wooo!"

They heard something hit the side of the bell then slide down. Karai's face appeared on the other side of the grate next to Donnie.

"Hey Donatello, did you miss me?"

"Karai! you're ok!" Donnie exclaimed, both happy to see her and embarrassed that he'd dwaddled so long getting back to her.

"Where's the cross?" Straight to the point that one.

"A Karai bot wearing a blue sundress ran away with it."

"That's great! We can follow them right to Stockman!" She grabbed his wrist and ran along the tunnel.

Leo started, he searched his mind fervently for something to say to stop them. Splinter grasped the bars tighter. "MIWA!"

Karai stopped, jerking Donnie to a stop behind her. She looked back and met the despairing eyes of her father. She seemed hurt to see him like that. But not enough to stop, she turned away and continued running.

"No! MIWA!" Gritting his teeth and bracing himself, Splinter started pushing up against the grate. Trying to lift it out of the way.

Splinter managed to pull it up a foot. Knowing an opening when he saw it, Leo pressed down on his stomach and shoved himself through the opening, Raph and Mikey followed suit.

Splinter continued to try to pull the grate out of the way, the rubble enclosing the grate began to crumble and slide forward in a small avalanche, obscuring him from their view.

"Sensi!" Leo called back.

"I'm fine! go! stop them! I'll find another way around!"

Leo nodded, though he knew his master couldn't see, and turned to lead his Brothers through the tunnels.

(end chapter)

When I first read this chapter I got to the part where Donnie held three throwing stars between his fingers and thought to myself. Wait... How does a guy with three fingers hold that many throwing stars between them. Since I know I've seen Donnie hold more than two throwing star at once before so I re-watched the show. It turns out he holds multiple stars by holding more than one between each finger. Clever animators.

Sss

PCs take naps occasionally. These idle cycles can be used for charity.

World community grid. Org can hook your computer up to a grid, your spare computing power can help researchers access data that helps them cure diseases. With your help projects expected to be completed in five years can be done in one.


	9. The hospital

Chapter 9- The hospital

The building they had tracked the bonneted bot to was several stories tall. The sign in front said hospital in nice lettering. It probably had a name printed above the word, but that had been covered by a large sticker signed 'condemned' in scratchy red letters.

Prying open the once automatic doors was a pain but do-able, that let them in the emergency room.

It was a room full of beat up chairs, vomit reeking garbage bins, and half finished coffee cans on tables.

Karai examed the moldy walls while Donnie kicked around the magazines strewn across the floor.

"So if I were a mad genius trying to build an interdimensional portal where would I put it?" Donnie asked.

" If you knew someone was trying to stop you, you'd put it in the last place anyone would look."

"Probably either the basement or the roof. But he could have stuck it in any random room on a whim or because it had the most electrical power."

"Then we'll check all of them."

They walked through a hall until they came to a door, they kicked it in together and entered.

It was dingy and covered in black mold spots, there were black squares on the floor where there used to be equipment, but other than an abandoned gurney the room seemed to be empty. At first glance. Karai had a weird feeling about it.

"Looks empty." Donatello said, turning slightly as if to leave. She ignored him and entered.

The room was dark, not that she wasn't used to that, she'd need more fingers then she had to count the number of times she'd wanted to tell her father. ' you know, this lighting makes you look kind of evil, maybe get a window.'

No, not her father, the traitor, he'd pretended to be her mother's... That was a lie, he killed her.

She'd been ok with his obsessive drive to avenge her mother when she'd thought the blame lay else where, so why shouldn't she accept the same drive in herself now that she knew where the blame really lay? ... Maybe.. It was easy to think so, but she'd also seen the trouble it had caused first hand, but she'd be different! She wasn't like... _Him_. Or at least she liked to think she wasn't. She wondered if she was still dangerous to others... She could accept the losses she'd incur fighting this battle as long as they were restricted to hers. She wondered if she maybe shouldn't have brought her brother.

She spotted something and pointed. "What's that."

Donnie kneeled down beside it. "A large metal plate. looks like it's split in the middle, probably so it can open.

"Is that standard in hospitals?"

"No, this is new."

A clicking noise drew her attention to the door, there was a sound approaching from the hall, a 'Sushwooshsushooshsishoosh'

A robot flew through the door, she took a moment to take it in. Really? Was Stockman trying to pay some kind of bizarre homage to her? Or was Shredder really missing her so much that he asked for a metal replica that could stand still and look pretty? The thought sickened her.

She placed a palm on the gurney between them as the bot closed the distance. _"Does this **thing** really think it can compete with the original?"_ She wondered.

The bot leaped in an attempt to clear the gurney and strike her from above. She pressed down on the gurney, see-sawing the other end up so her doppelganger crashed into it. Placing her foot on the gurney she shoved it back through the door.

There it smashed into two others that were attempting to file into the room behind it.

The one she'd gotten on the gurney smashed into the wall behind and sparked a bit before going limp. The other two pushed the gurney out of the way and approached her.

She impaled the first that came too close. The second tried to clobber her clumsily, she side stepped it and gouged a large gash in its side with her Tanto.

It swung an arm backward and gifted her with a fresh set of stinging cuts.

"Karai!" Donatello called, He tried to leap to her aid. The panel behind him opened up, wires shot out, curling around his ankles and cutting deep into the flesh.

"Donnie." Karai gasped. Her doppelganger crashed into her side, dragged her down with it onto the floor.

Karai!" Donnie called, dragged backward, he scrabbled at the sides of the wall cavity.

"Donnie." She gasped again, this time she flicked her wrist, letting the dagger she kept up her sleeve fall into her palm. She twisted in her doppelganger's hold, and, grasping the dagger with both hands, stabbed downward repeatedly, twisting the machine apart bit by bit until she'd chopped off its head and part of its chest. It finally slacked its hold and she kicked it off.

"Karai." Donnie said one last time before he lost his grip on the side and disappeared into the cavity.

"Donatello!" Karai dived forward to grab him, the panel closed as soon as she reached it and she pummeled it with her fists.

When clawing at it didn't work she tried to pry it open with her tanto, no luck there either.

She put her hands against the panel and called. "If it was dragging you down then it must be taking you to the basement, I'll follow and come down the other way, I'm coming for you Donatello, do you hear me? I'm coming for you!"

(scene break)

"Cheery." Raph quipped.

Leo glanced at him in annoyance, "Did you think the mad scientist's lab would be in the puppy and rainbow district?"

"That'd be the perfect place for a mad scientist lab, I mean, Who'd suspect cute little puppies of building rainbow death-rays!" Mikey exclaimed.

As usual, Leo couldn't tell if he was serious or not, so he ignored him and advanced on the condemned hospital.

" Door's smashed in, we must be late to the party." Raph said, stepping over the broken glass of the once automatic doorway.

 _"Doesn't anyone know anything about stealth anymore?"_ Leo wondered. Smashing in the front doors is the best way to trip an alarm. Donnie didn't strike him as the type to miss that so it must have been Karai.

Something told him this was less thoughtlessness and more of a dare.

He and Mikey gave a quick sweep of the waiting room while Raph swept down a hallway.

"Guys!" Raph called. They swept into the hall after him.

There was a smashed Karai bot in front of a doorway. Raph gestured them to approach then pointed to the door. "Pretty sure they went in there."

The door had a slender foot print pasted onto its right side, and a large unmistakably three-toed foot print on its left.

"Kicked the door in." Leo muttered to himself, then glanced into the room, "Impaled a Karai bot- What do you think is the deal with those things anyways?"

"Maybe she posed for the original model before she found out daddy was a bloodthirsty warlord." Raph muttered, "This room is pretty empty, do you think there used to be something in here?"

"Hmm." Mikey got close to the ground, "There are some rings on the ground that are lighter than the other, maybe something was moved."

"I think that was the hospital equipment that was moved out when they closed shop. It's still grimy enough to make me think this stuff was moved a while ago."

"Hey! I think I see a compartment." Mikey exclaimed. Pointing to the metal plates in the wall, he reached for them and was shoved out of the way as Raph elbowed his way over.

"Let me see." Raph demanded, pulling out his Sais, he tried to pry the panels off the walls.

Suddenly the panel opened and chords shot out, wrapping around the bottom half of Raphael's body.

"Raph!" His brothers exclaimed, leaping forward to grab him.

"Nonononono." Raph muttered as he was dragged into the floor cavity.

Leo and Micky gave a mighty heave and pulled Raph a foot out of the cavity. Then the metal coils doubled their strength and recoiled deeper into the cavity, dragging Raph down it and slamming his brothers' faces into the sides of the floor.

"Raph!" Mikey cried, trying to leap down after him, only for the metal panels to slam shut on his arm. He screamed in pain.

Leo grabbed him and tugged as hard as he could, causing Mikey to scream louder until Leo finally worked his arm loose from the panel and the panel slammed shut.

Together they pried at the panel, but not even mutant strength was enough to make it budge.

"Oh man. Oh man oh man oh man. We lost Raph." Leo panicked.

Mikey's panicking skills topped Leo's. "What if they experiment on him!? It's like all of Sensi's warning about being seen by humans have come to life. Raph's literally in some crazy Scientist lab right this second. What if they cut him up?"

Leo sat down and put his hands on his head, "Not helping Mikey, give me a moment to think. If only there was a way we could see into all the rooms at once, then we could find all our siblings at once. I wonder if Donnie had a device for that-"

Leo's eyes opened and his mind went blank.

"Leo? Hey Leo wake up!" Mikey cried," please tell you're meditating on a way out of this mess. Leo? LEO!"

But Leo's mind was someplace else.

(scene break)

" _SENSI!"_

 _Leo looked up from his cartoon to see Raph barreling into the lair, the 8-year-old looked terrified._

 _Raph never looked terrified. "Raph? What's wrong?" Leo asked. Mikey poked his head out of the kitchen to see what the commotion was all about._

 _"I noticed Donnie sneaking off into the sewers so I decided to follow him, but then I lost him and couldn't figure out where he went. When I turned to go back home I saw a pair of hideous red eyes watching me from the shadows. THERE"S A MONSTER IN THE SEWER AND IT ATE DONNIE!"_

 _Leo and Mikey gasped in fear._

 _"How did you get away?" Mikey asked, eye's wide._

 _I threw the blanket I had on over its head then punched it in the nose, then I ran here."_

 _"You led it back to the lair!?" Leo exclaimed. How could Raph be so stupid?_

 _On cue, there was a groaning noise coming from the entrance._

 _The three turtle tots glanced into the mouth of the lair._

 _Something ambled into the lair, fighting to unentangle itself from the sheet Raph had thrown over it._

 _The three tots screamed and ran into a corner to huddle together as the monster ambled towards them._

 _"Oooh." The monster groaned one last time, and, giving a mighty tug, managed to yank off the sheet Raph had trapped it in._

 _Donnie peered at his cowering siblings. "Raph, why did you hit me?"_

 _Leo and Mikey went from whimpering in terror to laughing and rolling on the floor._

 _Raph turned as red as his green complexion would let him and sank under the weight of his embarrassment._

 _"Well, there you go Raph, looks like you just had a run in with the most terrifying thing in the sewers. Tiny turtle mutants." Leo teased._

 _"Oh man," Mikey said, tears streaming down his face. "That was funnier than my last three pranks combined, who knew Raph was such a scardy cat."_

 _"I'll show you scared." Raph snapped, chasing his still-laughing brother around the room._

 _Leo wiped a tear of mirth from his eye and turned his attention to Donnie._

 _"What were you doing hiding out in the sewers, Donnie?"_

 _"I wasn't hiding, I was setting up my new invention." Donnie held up something that looked like a refurbished baby monitor. "It's a security system, so we can hear anyone trying to come into the sewers. One day I'm going to build a camera to add to it."_

 _"Maybe tell us and Master Splinter next time you going running off to tinker away from the lair OK." Leo chastised._

 _"Ok." Donnie agreed reluctantly. "I guess I'll go back to trying to make my laptop work."_

 _Leo nodded in approval. "Anything I can do to help?" He asked, It was good to reward improved behavior._

 _"I don't know, But I think I might be close to cracking it, here let me show you what I mean." Donnie said excitedly, dragging his brother into his lab._

(scene break)

"Dude, you're freaking me out here, "Mikey said, "Don't leave me to figure this out by myself." He begged.

Leo came to. "It happened again... a memory?"

"Leo, you're back! You really had me scared for a minute bro, don't do that." Mikey said.

Leo stood up and scanned the room. He spotted a small hole in the wall he had overlooked before. Marching up to it, he ripped it opened and pulled out a whirring, sparking, video camera.

"That Stockman guy must have rebuilt the security system, complete with cameras, that means there must be a security room somewhere where we can see everything that the cameras do. If we can find that room, we can check every room at once." Leo said.

"Ah yeah! I knew you would come up with a plan. Maybe I should try meditating next time." Mikey whooped.

(Scene break)

The coils had dragged Raphael into a containment pod filled with ooze.

He could hold his breath for a long time, but his lungs were so empty when he was dragged under that he couldn't hold out for very long, he was surprised to find that he could breathe this fluid, but it made him very groggy. Like he had a lung full of tranquilizers.

He struggled a bit at first, but then his arms went slack and he felt his mind dull. He felt himself drifting along on the very edge of consciousness.

" _I'm going to pound you, Mikey!" Raph yelled._

" _You'll have to catch me first." Mikey teased, Why was that little squirt so fast?_

 _Something made Raph come to a stop. A crackling noise that startled him._

 _He looked this way then that for the sound until his eyes fell on Donnie's monitor._

 _It cackled again then spoke in a strange voice._

" _Heh, turtles are so icky looking, hey, think we could get it out of its shell? I want to see what it looks like without it."_

 _Raph nearly retreated into his shell himself, didn't they know a shell was part of the turtle's spine? Wait, what turtle were they shelling?_

 _He gasped in horror. "DONNIE!"_

 _He turned and ran out of the lair, "I'll save you, Donnie!"_

 _He bounded through the sewers until he was in a pipe over-looking the tunnel where he had run into Donnie before, He peeked over the edge._

 _Three human teens were spinning a turtle on its shell. OK, not Donnie. Too small._

" _What happened to its head?" One asked._

" _It's hiding in its shell." One answered._

" _Oh right, I forgot they could do that. Think you could get it out so I can look at it?"_

" _OK, Little guy, let's get you out of there." The oldest boy said, trying to grab the Turtles head and yank it out of its shell._

" _He's hurting him." Raph thought, gritting his teeth. He jumped off out of the pipe and landed on the human. The three teens screamed, and the boy flung Raph off._

" _What is that thing!?"_

" _Oh man. I'd heard of giant alligators in the sewer but not giant turtles. Uh, maybe coming here was a bad idea."_

" _Don't worry," said the oldest teen, "I'll kill it."_

 _He strutted forward and tried to grab Raph's neck. Raph bit him._

 _The teen screeched and tried to yank his hand away._

 _Raph clamped his mouth shut harder out of spite. Eventually, the teen managed to wrench his hand away._

" _EEE! That thing has RABIES! Kevin has rabies!"_

" _What! No I don't."_

" _Get away from us sicko!" The other two teens ran down the sewer tunnel._

" _Wait! I don't have rabies, it's just a scratch." The last teen ran after them._

 _Raph picked up the small turtle and ran back to the lair with it. He hoped he didn't get in trouble for that. It wasn't like they were smart enough to figure out he was a mutant anyway, so revealing himself couldn't be that bad right?_

 _Donnie was setting up a computer in the living room._

" _And... let's turn it on."_

 _The screen blinked to life._

" _Woah!" Mikey said._

 _"Hey Donnie?" Raph asked._

 _"In a minute, Raph."_

" _What are you going to do first?" Leo asked._

" _I'm going to look up labs, Master Splinter is always warning us about them so I want to see what's in them-Vivisection...? I wonder what that word means."_

" _Ahh!" The three turtles screamed._

" _Woah, dude look! You can see that's monkey's-"_

" _Turn it off Donnie, you'll give Mikey nightmares."_

" _Wha- nuh-uh, I won't get nightmares, woah sick! You can see its guts!"_

 _Raph slumped against the back of the couch and slide his carapace down it until he was sitting on the floor clutching the other turtle to his chest. He let out a small sob._

 _Leo heard this and doubled his admonitions to turn the screen off until Donnie closed the window._

 _Stupid humans. Why did they need to do stuff like that? They'd pull a turtle out of its shell on what, a whim? No, for scientific curiosity, well. He knew their secret, they were afraid of him. And he was going to milk that for all it was worth. So heaven help any human that tried to drag either him or one of him brothers into a lab. Because they were going to get a scare they'd never forget._

(End flashback)

Raph came to, something about the vision had returned some of his clarity. He pulled his feet in and pressed them against the back of the cage and pressed forward with off his might.

The coils holding him cut into his flesh more and more until one by one they started to snap.

The last cord snapped, sending him flying forward into the front of the cage, hitting it with all his strength and knocking it loose. The cage fell out forward to the ground and smashed on the floor.

Raph put his palms on the floor and pressed himself onto his plastron, snarling.

(scene break.)

They trotted through the long white hallways trying to find the stairway.

The walls had been painted over, a sunny mural covered in trees and animals followed them as they went, something that looked like popped balloons littered the floor. Something told him that they were close to the childrens ward.

"Dude, Why are we even looking for the stairs anyways? We could just climb up the side of the building. Look, the hospital is right in front of the river, if we fell we'd just wind up in the water."

"I didn't bring my Tegaki, Mikey, and it's harder to climb with Katanas then with scythes." Leo said.

Mikey nodded and went back to scanning the hallway. "What's that glass room?"

Leo read the plate. "Containment room. This must be where they put anyone contagious."

Mikey didn't see the newcomer in his peripheral vision until they had already struck Leo and knocked him into the containment chamber.

Leo!" Mikey cried, He turned to face the newcomer.

It was something out a sardine pizza nightmare. A carp as big as a man stood in front of him on large metal legs. An obnoxious orange breathing apparatus was stuck on it's gills.

"AH! Robo-carp!" Mikey screamed.

"Stop giving me annoying nicknames, Fishface was bad enough." The carp snapped.

"Oh, did I already name you? Eh, I guess Fishface works." Mikey said.

Fishface snarled and kicked Mikey into the chamber door, slamming him into Leo just as his brother was about to exit with swords drawn.

Fishface shut the doors behind himself and locked them in.

The fishe's nasty laugh echoed through the chamber as it started to fill with gas.

"Poison?" Leo asked.

"It's my venom made gaseous, it loses it's fatality in gas form, but still retains some of its hallucinogenic properties, should make this an interesting fight for you." The carp sneered.

Leo flung himself at the glass, kicking in repeatedly in the same spot, almost making it crack.

Fishface flew forward, kicking Leo in the chin, sending the young turtle upward.

Leo dropped one of his swords, which embedded itself into the ground.

Leo!" Mirky cried, then coughed as the disgusting fetid air made its way into his lungs.

"Yech, smells like rotten eggs mixed with sulfur. Fishface must have the worst breath of anyone I've ever met."

"Hold your breath, Mikey." Leo said, stooping low to the ground where the gas had yet to settle and taking a huge breath.

"Dude, you couldn't have given me that advice a few minutes ago?" Mikey asked, they had all tried to see who the breath holding turtle champ was before, and Mikey had won at the 44-minute mark. But that didn't really help him now that he'd already tasted the gas. The taste would be stuck in his mouth all day he was sure.

Fishface and Leo began to fight. Mikey took a step forward to join the brawl, but pulled his leg back when he felt fit toes touch slimy flesh, did that part of the floor turn into a large fleshy tongue?

He recoiled from the disgusting sensation. He reached back for his chucks to spin them at the carp but pulled his fingers away from the weapon as the red hot wood burned him.

 _"What? That doesn't make any sense!"_ He thought.

Leo ducked under Fishface's punch and responded with an uppercut. Fishface reeled for a second then rallied with a kick that connected with the younger mutants face, Turning Leo's head to the side and filling it with cracks.

Mikey watched in horror as his brother shattered like glass.

"LEO!" Mikey screamed, his knees hit the floor and he covered his mouth his hands, trying to choke back the sobs.

"Would you quit your whining!" Fishface snapped.

Leo reformed on the floor. "hrrmph." Leo sounded, trying to reassure Mikey without breathing out his air.

"What is going on!?" Mikey gasped.

"I said shut up!" Fishface threw a snapped off bit of chair at Mikey's Head, It cracked his skull and turned into a brain worm.

He screamed again, picked it up and threw it as hard as he could behind him. It bounced off the glass and hit him in the head again, hard enough to send him crashing to the floor.

He heard a muffled scream of fury. He opened his eyes.

He could see himself in the reflection of Leo's sword, there was blood trickling down his forehead.

Leo flung himself at Fishface, Fishface managed to grab Leo around the neck with one of his metal feet.

"LEO!"

(Scene break.)

 _Mikey sniffed and wiped away a tear, He had calmed down enough to turn his attention back to his brothers. Donnie was wrapping bandages around another turtle. How had he not noticed that?_

 _"Ok, Raph, make sure to bring him to me tomorrow so I can check him again and change his bandages."_

"Kay. _" Raph said. Picking up the small turtle and walking away with it._

 _Mikey popped in at his side._

 _"Hey Raph, Is that a new pet? Can I name it?"_

 _"No."_

 _"Please?"_

 _"No."_

 _"Please?"_

 _"No."_

 _"Please?"_

 _"No."_

 _"Please?"_

 _Raph entered his bedroom and slammed the door shut. "No."_

"Aww. _" Mikey said, dismayed._

 _He turned back and returned to the living room. His brothers never let him do anything fun._

 _Maybe he could ask Donnie to find him a computer game on his new computer. Determined to find out, he hastened back to where Donnie was standing, His brother's back was to him."_

 _"_ Hey _Donnie!" No answer._

 _"Donnie?" His brother said nothing._

 _"Hey, are you ignoring me?" He asked. He hated being ignored. If this went on any longer he'd have to go blow up a balloon and pop it an inch away from his brother's ear, that'd get his attention._

 _Even Leo was starting to take notice something was up._

 _Suddenly Donnie jerked, like something in him had snapped, he picked up a mallet and started to smash his computer to bits._

 _Mikey leaped back in fright, His brother always got so upset when other people smashed his inventions, Why has he smashing his own invention now?_

 _"Donnie, Stop!" Leo cried, lunging forward to grab Donnie from behind and pull him away from the computer rampage before he could electrocute himself. "Why are you doing this!?"_

 _"Why! Why! Because It doesn't matter! Nothing matters! I'm never going to use it for anything important, humans will never accept us, look at what they said about Raph, they thought he had rabies! We're going to be stuck in these sewers our whole lives, no one will ever even know we exist!"_

 _Leo wrenched the mallet out of his brother's hands and threw it away._

 _They stared off at each other, Donnie on the verge of tears and Leo looking unsure of what to say._

 _Mikey thought hard, harder than he'd ever had to think before. He would have to reach down into the farthest depths of himself to figure out a way to cheer his brother up._

 _Cupcakes? Splinter wasn't sure they could eat human food so he'd have to make an algae substitute cake and for some_ reason _his brothers didn't enjoy those as much as he did._

 _Kittens? Sneaking one into the sewers would require getting past Splinter, and his Sensi had caught him when he tried before._

 _A light bulb went off in his head and he smacked his fist into his palm in realization._

 _"I know!" He exclaimed. Catching his brother attention._

 _He ran forward and grabbed both of their hands and dragged them behind him into his bedroom._

 _"I know exactly what we're meant for, and the answer is right… Here!" He presented his evidence proudly._

 _"A comic book?" Leo asked._

 _Donnie stepped forward, "Wingbat and Screwloose vs the fear ray. What does anything in here have to do with us?"_

 _"Duh, Comic book heroes all have weird backstories that explain why they can do all of the stuff that other people_ can't. _" Mikey explained, wasn't it obvious?_

 _"You think we'll grow up to be heroes?" Leo asked, eye's lighting up._

 _"I'm not sure Ninjutsu would be enough to beat something like that," Donnie said, examining the comic cover. "How do they beat the fear Ray?"_

 _Mikey looked at him with sparkling eyes. "Love."_

 _"Are you kidding? Love isn't a superpower. What are you supposed to do? Beat your opponent by kissing them."_

 _Mikey started to feel a little offended. Didn't his brother know anything about the intricacies of comic lore?_

 _"Love is too a superpower. It's used in at least three different comic franchises. And that's just the ones that wash up in the sewer."_

 _"I still don't understand how… An emotion can beat a large ray gun like that." Donnie countered._

 _"Because the gun shoots fear and you have to use love to counteract that,_ duh. _" Mikey said, Maybe he should make his brother read the comic so he could understand it better._

 _"I think I kind of understand how that could_ work. _" Leo said._

 _"You do?" Donnie asked._

 _"Yeah, Like you feel afraid of something and you have an overpowering need to run away. But If someone you really cared about was stuck there you'd fight it cause you wanted to stay and protect them." Leo said, puffing his chest out, "That's what big brother instinct is all about."_

 _"Yeah, When Screwloose was in danger Wingnut was so scared for Screwloose he forgot to be afraid for himself." Mikey babbled, happy for an opportunity to talk about one of his favorite comics._

 _"I guess I could kind of see how that_ works. _" Donnie admitted._

 _Mikey wormed his way in between his brother and threw an arm around each of them._

 _"Just you guys wait, one day, we're all going to grow up."_

 _"And when we do-" Leo said, continuing his thought._

 _"We'll be Heroes!" Donnie cheered, infected by the good mood of his brothers._

(Scene break)

What was that?" Mikey wondered.

Leo flailed around inside Fishface's grip.

Mikey sat on his knees and screamed. The scream seemed to echo throughout the hall. He half expected it to turn supersonic and shatter the glass.

Fishface kicked Leo in the stomach, dropping him on the floor. Leo twitched, caught between needing another breath of air and not wanting to inhale poison.

Fishface marched over to Mikey and lifted his foot over top Mikey's head.

'I said-"

Mikey leaped up, kicking both of his feet into Fishface's chest and sending him backward.

Mikey gripped his chucks. He ignored the squishy burning sensation as he gripped what felt like a sponge in one hand and ice in his other hand.

He smashed the sponge into Fishface's chest and the other mutant jerked back the same way he would have if hurt by chucks. Emboldened by this, Mikey smashed his other chuck into Fishface's side.

The chuck seemed to shatter on Fishface's apparatus knocking it off the overgrown carp.

Fishface groped around his gills for his apparatus, choking. Realizing he wouldn't be able to breathe, he smashed through the glass, making a break for the window, smashing into the walls as he went past, he slammed into a fire alarm, setting it off before he plunged out of the window.

Mikey collapsed on the ground, listening to the screaming of the alarm. It sounded like a banshee, predicting his death. The room seemed to dissolve into a purple fog that closed on him, threatening to suffocate him. He closed his eyes.

"I know I've never asked the fates for anything, and I've never doubted them. But please, If I really was meant to be a hero… send me a sign." He said, closing his eyes.

The sprinklers turned on.

The rain hit his skin in a way that felt pounding, like he was being stabbed with a thousand tiny needles. Then the sensation started to melt away, the blaring alarm ceased to cause him pain. He opened his eyes. The water was heavy enough to catch the gas in the room, catching it and washing it into a swirling purple puddle that swirled around a drain and started to seep out of the room.

Leo gasped for breath, then shoved himself onto his feet and ran over to Mikey.

"Mikey, are you ok?"

Mikey laughed, a loud booming laugh of disbelief. "Yeah, yeah, I'm ok. Just give me a minute to rest and I'll help find Donnie."

"Ok, but don't take too long, we don't have much time."

Mikey waved him off. "I'll take five, you go find our bros and Karai."

"Are you sure?"

"I'll be fine, go."

(Scene break)

Raph moved around the room, getting more riled up by the second.

Near as he could tell he was stuck in what he guessed used to be a morgue, the stiffs were gone but the smell of death remained. The cage he had been stuck in was attached to a hatch put over what Raph guessed from crime shows to be a drawer for dead bodies. He didn't really looking forward to trying to escape this room through the same way he came in from. The problem was the room was so dark it was hard to figure out where the doors were. He found one of them, but it was steel, and locked tight, he threw himself against it a few times, but it didn't seem inclined to budge.

Glowering he turned back to the cage and sighed, looked like he was going to have to crawl up there, might as well get it over with.

*BUUZZ*

He whipped around to face the door, pulling out his Sia's.

A buzz saw cut into the door circling around the lock until it fell out of the frame.

Karai kicked the door him, still keep a firm hold on her robot likeness, she twisted the buzzsaw arm off and tossed it away before throwing the karai-bot to the ground and dislocating its head with a well-placed heel stomp.

"Raph? What are you doing here? I was looking for Donnie."

"He's not with you?"

"No. He got dragged down here by some kind or trapdoor."

"I got dragged down here by the same thing, but if he didn't get out of here by going up through the trapdoor, and you didn't pass him on your way here then-"

*ding*

They both turned to the far wall, A stream of light filled the room as the previously hidden elevator doors opened.

"Tigerclaw." Karai spat.

"It is nice to see you again, mistress Karai, I had come to collect the turtle, but I will be willing to escort you as well."

"What did you do to Donnie, freak!?" Raph snapped.

"I have taken him to the roof, where you will soon be joining him. don't worry, you won't have to wait long for the reunion."

"I'll take Tigerclaw, you get to the elevator." Karai ordered.

Raph looked at her funny, since when was she the leader? But he held up his Sais.

Tiger claw pulled out his pistols and shot at her.

Karia sprinted out of the way, running along the wall and holding her tanto low to the ground letting it scrape along the ground with a threatening screech while she circled the room to strike Tigerclaw.

He held up his pistol, blocking the blow.

She ran past him, slicing a notch into the pistol, She took a swipe at his feet, and he leaped over it, He fired off a shot at her and she leaped back to avoid it then jumped into the air trying to hit him from above, he blocked the tanto again and she was forced to kick off. Doing a backflip and landing on her feet.

Raph snuck behind him and pressed the door on the elevator, opening it.

Tigerclaw noticed this, watching Raph out of the corner of his eye.

Karia noted where Tiger claw's attention was going and knew she needed to get him to refocus on her.

She threw herself at him, turning into a snake midflight and wrapped herself around his torso.

Raph blinked at them from the inside of the elevator, that wasn't a sight he was expecting to see today.

Tiger claw was forced to keep moving his head back and forth to evade Karai's snapping jaws, he knew he need to stop Raph from getting away from him, so he backed away while jerking out of Karai's target area and backed all the way into the elevator fast enough to squish Raph against the back wall.

Then he spun, causing Karai to spin with him, one of her snake arms slapped into the elevator buttons, highlighting the button for every other floor.

The elevator doors shut them in with each other.

It was going to be a long way to the roof.

(Scene break.)

April!" April jumped, sponge still in hand, and paused tending to Casey to watch the door.

Master Splinter burst through the door looking more distressed than she had ever seen him.

"Master Splinter? What's the matter?"

"I can't find my children, I tried to track them with my nose, then my sixth sense, usually I can get a sense of where they are but- Then I remembered that my sons managed to track Donatello through a phone given to them by your friend. Does he still possess it?"

"The T-phone? I have one of those, I can pull up their locations for you."

April reached for the phone.

"Open me." She paused.

"Let me in there already."

Her hand changed position to hover over the time amulet.

"April?" Splinter asked.

"My psychic sense is going crazy, It's like this thing is talking to me."

April picked up the amulet and opened it.

A large burst of energy flooded the room, swirled around then concentrated into a circle in front of her.

Two hands placed themselves on each side of the circle and began to push. The face of a girl wearing an hourglass headpiece appearing in the "window" And huffed with the effort of parting the sides.

The girl forced a smile. "Hi! I'm Rennet." She forgot her task for a moment and tried to reach out a hand to shake April's, allowing the side of the window to slam into her, she let out a painful "ooomph." And went back to trying to part the window.

"What the-?" April started to ask.

"Can I interrupt? You don't know how long I've been trying to force my way into this timeline and I can't keep this window open long. I need you to find Donnie and get the turtles away from Kairos."

"What? Why?"

"Because he's a fakey fake fake! He flunked his time apprentice exams and tried to get revenge by creating a duplicate Time scepter, Only he got it wrong and it won't work right, so he's trying to force Donnie to fix it for him, Barking up the wrong tree there, he should have tried 120-year-old Donnie that one might have had a chance. umpth!" The window started to swallow her.

"FIND THE TURTLES! GET THE TIME WAND AWAY FROM THAT GOON BEFORE HE CAN DO ANYMORE DAMAGE! DON"T BELIVE ANYTHING THAT FAKER SAYS ABOUT-!" The window shut.

April threw the Time amulet around her neck and snatched up the T-phone.

"Let's move!"

(End chapter)

That was the latest chapter. I think this has been coming together pretty well considering that I wrote this to practice my fight scenes and mostly wrote the plot around them.

I'll be updating next week like always. Have a good day.


	10. The Rooftop

Donnie tugged at his restraints, A bit higher caliber than the usual, that made it more difficult to escape. He inventoried the items around him for tools he could use in his escape.

On one side of the roof was a door leading to a box he knew to be an elevator. On the other side was another box that he assumed to be the stairway. In the middle of the roof was a table filled with several tools and instruments. That was where the contents of Donnie's weapon belt and his Bo staff had been deposited by Tigerclaw. Not that his Bo would have been much help to him, after it was snapped in two by melty face 3.0 Donnie had been left with what essentially amounted to a baton and a dagger.

The thing that really caught his eye was the thing behind the table. A large steel structure covered in wires. The Krang-cell infused cross was the centerpiece of that contraption, outshined only by the Time scepter embedded in its base.

"Is that the time scepter? " Donnie asked. "How did you manage to get that?"

"Simple. You're nnnnot the only one I sent Tiger claw to capture." Stockfly wheeled out a table that had been behind Donnie's and placed it in front of him. Kairos was strapped to it.

 _"Oh no."_ Donnie lamented internally. That idiot was here too? That was the last thing anyone needed.

"Sorry Donnie. They were too much for me." Kairos apologized.

"Now that I have the time scepter in my possession I can fulfill my promises to the Kraang, but before that, I will summon my master."

"He figured out how to bring things here with the time scepter? How is that possible? He made this plan before he captured you."

"Uh, I kinda asked him to look at the time scepter before I asked you."

"WHAT!? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?"

"I thought his rep for evilness was exaggerated ok? He can't fix it well enough to do anything bigger then bring over one thing at a time anyway."

"That is why I needed to send Tigercla-zzz- to capture the brainy turtle, I figure with two scientists-zzz- of our caliber we can get the -zzz- scepter fully operational."

"And why would I do something like that?" Donnie challenged.

"Because if you don't then I'm going to be feeding your fri-ee-nd here to the fishies. It's a long drop down to the river."

Donnie winced, who's bright idea was it to put a hospital right next to the river anyway? Falling off the roof into the river from this height would feel like slamming into a brick wall. A mutant might survive that but they'd be too stunned to get out of the water unless someone dragged them.

"Stockman. Stockman, reconsider. Shredder was the one who turned you into a mutant remember? Nothing good can some your way after bringing him here."

"You'rrre wrrrong, I will be the right handzzz of royalty, that'zz much better than my old job."

"Greedy, status hungry little-" Donnie started, then his eye caught something else.

The door to the stair way was open just a crack, another turtle peeked through it.

 _"Rookie Leo is here too?"_ Donnie thought to himself, trying to decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing. He decided it was a good thing since he was bound and Leo was the only hope of turning off that machine.

Leo watched Stockfly carefully then sprinted out of the doorway stealthily the moment the fly's back was turned.

He hid behind the large wall of steel Donnie was tied to. "Donnie, status?"

"OK, Stockman caught Kairos, we need to get him out of the way so we can get the power cell out of that machine."

Leo undid the strap buckles. Donnie let them lie limp across him so Stockfly couldn't tell he was free.

Leo waited until the most opportune moment then rolled behind Kairos and undid his straps too.

They waited for Stockfly to lose himself in his calculations before they made their move. Leo gestured to Kairos to stay where he was and waved Donnie over to him. Donnie cast off his binds and snuck over to Leo. The two of them started to sneak up behind Stockman, stepping carefully to not give themselves away.

Stockman laughed, "zzzilly turtleszzz, don't you know how difficult it izzz to sneak up on a fly?"

Stockman hit a button.

Fashooshfashoooshfashooosh.

Leo and Donnie fell into fighting position as a swarm of Karai bots slid out from behind the machinery.

"New plan. RUN!" Leo called out, turning and gesturing to Kairos to follow them.

"RUN! We can't run! We need to stop Shredder!" Donnie cried.

"I've got a plan." Leo called back, darting down the stairs.

Donnie didn't feel great about this plan, but he had learned not to underestimate his brothers, so he followed.

They darted down the stairways as fast as they could, The stair way coiled down the building in a square pattern, he could look up through the center of the square back at the top of the stairway. When they realized the bots weren't following them they stopped.

"Why is no one coming?" Leo asked.

"Because it's smarter to stay and protect the machine then to chase us all through the hospital and scatter their forces," Donnie guessed,"We need to get those power cells, if that machine powers up the Shredder will be able to come through."

"We need to get to an elevator, I saw Karai and Raph talking to that Tigerman on the security cameras about going to the roof, now they're all stuck in the elevator and trying to fight each other while it bounces between floors."

"The power cells have to come first."

"Were you not listening? They are trapped inside a small soundproof box with a Tigerman."

"We need to get the time scepter." "Kairos said, "THAT'S what we need to be worried about."

Leo Looked back at Kairos in surprise, then a look of realization overtook his features and he snarled.

"I know who we need to be worried about."

Leo shoved Kairos against the wall, "It's you isn't it?"

"Him?", Donnie asked, confused.

Kairos began to sweat, "What makes me a bigger threat than Shredder?"

"Because you're always there. Not doing anything, just there. Donnie, What was he doing before Tigerclaw showed up in the arena?"

"He was talking to me about repairing the Time scepter."

"And what did you say?"

"That I couldn't do it."

Leo's eyes never left Kairos's. "And then Tigerclaw showed up and Kairos tried to stop you from leaving the cart because?"

"Because he didn't think I could save Mikey by myself, That I needed to repair the time scepter to save him."

"And he was there after melty face tried to kidnap you. And there when you tried to follow the robot back to its source."

"Stockman... You don't think?"

"That it's a little funny him and Stockman suddenly want the same thing? Not at all, If you consider the fact all the villains were trying to bring you here. He and Stockman decided to pull this hostage stunt to get you to repair the wand for them."

Donnie gasped, and watched Kairos's sweaty face for sign of confirmation. It did make a certain amount of sense, he'd tried as hard as he could to get Donnie away from the other turtles, and when he had reason to think they'd stop Donnie he'd sent Karai to make sure Donnie wound up where he was wanted, the turtles could stop Donnie from coming here, but not Karai."You ... You summoned all of my enemies... To manipulate me!?"

"Damn it ... I told you not to let this bunch get involved." Kairos hissed under his breath.

Donnie backed away. "That's sounds a lot like a confession."

Kairos smacked Leo away from him.

"Did anyone tell you you're kind of famous in the future? You even had a dojo open in one of your visits to the future, 2200? Was It? I can't remember... Your fighting style is taught in many places in the future, I decided it would be prudent to learn a bit. But Hey, why rely on that when you have an eternity full of tec to borrow from."

Kairos held his hand close to the ground- A blue whip fell into his palm.

He grabbed the handle and flung it outward at Leo. The whip crackled as it hit him, zapping him with electricity and sending him flying into a wall.

"Leo." Donnie whispered, He looked at Kairos in confusion, " Why?" He asked, "What could you possibly need to do this for?"

"I thought you were supposed to be the smart one, I need that scepter fixed."

"Why can't you just go back to the time palace and get it fixed there?"

"Because they kicked me out! Said I wasn't time apprentice material, rejected me, why should they get to hog all the power? I used a machine to copy the wand, but it came out wrong and won't work right, so I needed someone to fix it, but they found out what I was doing and somehow managed to shut me out of most of the timelines I wanted to get to."

"So you made this... This... cut-off timeline? So you could ask the scientists here to help you?"

"I would have preferred to get here 80 years later but my time scepter wouldn't let me."

"You.. Made us? Including me?"

"Yeah.. I guess you could say that."

" You made us." Donnie said out loud, having difficulty believing it.

"I am your creator, you are mine to do what I wish with, you will do what I say." Kairos snapped.

" You took my family's memories of me."

"I didn't want you being distracted by them, so I tried to separate you two."

"I..." Donnie scraped around for something to say, he wanted to be angry, incandescently, blindly angry, like Raph on a bad day. But he couldn't muster enough strength. He felt drained, these past few days had put him through the emotional wringer, and now this jerk was telling him that Donnie had sobbed his guts up not once but twice because the man was riding a power trip.

Donnie's shoulders shook and he tried not to tear up, "How can you live with yourself? Going the way you are? How can you just treat people like toys?"

"Did you not understand what I just said?" Kairos stepped up to Don and grabbed the front of his shell. "I made you! The only reason you exist is because of me! I am your god! Worship me."

"You're no god," Donnie whispered. "You're just as fallible as I am."

"I have the power to control all of space and time!"

"Not- uf- anymore." Leo huffed, pushing himself to his feet. "You left the time scepter upstairs, Stockman is the one with all the power now."

"And he's using it to create Shredder. Do you know anything about that man?" Donnie said.

"Stop questioning your god!" Kairos screamed, He pulled back his whip intending to lash Donnie with it. Leo grabbed the end of it, and, enduring the shocks, yanked back the whip enough to pull Kairos off his feet.

Leo sped forward, grabbing his brother's hands as he ran past, Donnie fell in step with him as they ran upstairs.

They burst through the doorway onto the roof, Leo drew his swords, Donnie made to draw his Bo then remembered he didn't have it.

The Karai bots swarmed at them, Leo's world dissolved in a flurry of flashing blades and kicks.

Donnie sprinted away from them. Trying to lead as many as he could away from Leo to increase his brother's chances. Donnie tried to circle around to attack Stockman directly.

Kairos leaped in front of him and sent a lashing whip-strike his way.

Donnie ducked and allowed the whip to wrap around a Karai bot, electrocuting it. Then leaped forward, kicking Kairos in the chest. Kairos flew back but managed to land on his hands and fling himself back onto his feet, drat, he must know more ninjutsu than Donnie had hoped.

He felt so stupid, he should have known something was up the moment Karai appeared, Why did Kairos work so hard to keep him away from the turtles and then send Karai to push him to come here? Because he knew if he didn't the turtles would drag him back home, and then they could get their memories back and expose him. And why did Karai remember him when Kairos hadn't mentioned her being near the brawl when the time scepter was hit? Because he was lying about that. For a genius he'd really been had this time.

Ding!

The elevator door opened, Karai and Raph tumbled outward, slammed Tigerclaw underneath them.

Karai rolled out and onto her feet, pulling up the two pistols she'd taken off tigerclaw. She spun around and around like a ballerina, firing in all directions, hitting The Karia bots this way and that.

Raph leaped onto another Karia bot as it folded its hand into a buzzsaw. He dragged it to the ground under him and pressed on the arm above the elbow, bending its saw back until the machine started sawing itself in two.

Karai sent a few bolts flying at Kairos.

Kairos dodged the bolts and kicked her in the chest, knocking her back toward the stairs.

Tigerclaw growled from his spot on the floor, recovering from his beatdown he charged at Karai like a raging animal, forgetting his ninjutsu in his rage he smashed into her, knocking her over the stairway! "Karai!" Leo called. He leaped over the Railway, jumping from wall to wall across the railing in a zigzagg he intercepted Karai's fall and knocked her into another room.

They rolled along the floor until their momentum tapped out and Leo came to a stop on top of her.

She was surprised for a moment, then smiled at him, he felt his cheeks burn.

They heard a roar behind them.

"This way, " Leo said, getting up and grabbing her wrist, he ran into a closet and shut the door.

They hid in the closet and held their breath. They could sense Tigerclaws presence outside, heavy and oppressive.

Leo peeked at Karia, she caught him looking at her, His cheeks blazed even hotter and he looked away.

He could feel her gaze hold on him and eventually gave in and looked back at her.

"You really don't remember me do you?"

He paused, Should he?

"You still have that surprised and awed look you had back when I first met you."

She shifted slightly, "I never imagined I'd see that look again." She mused aloud.

"How did we know each other?"

"You tried to save me. You know the story, girl runs with bad crowd, boy thinks he can change her, realizes he can't, gets hurt. Only this story had a twist, I found out my real past." She sighed. "And I tried to deal with the only way I had been taught how, via stabbity methods. Didn't work out well for me. I lost myself." She smiled at him. "You promised to bring me back. To bring me home. Thank you."

Leo's heart started pounding in his chest. "T-Thanks." He stammered. "I mean, you're welcome." He corrected, feeling embarrassed for trying to take credit for something that was done by another him.

She placed a hand on her mouth to stifle a mirthful, pppth! She placed a hand on his face and pressed him away. "You look like such a groupie right now. Stop it. it's embarrassing."

He nearly shrank into his shell from embarrassment.

"I think Tigerclaw is gone." He said quickly, getting up.

He opened the door just a crack and peeked through, seeing the coast was clear he threw the door open.

"Come one, let's go."

Donnie did a backward somersault, leaping over another Karai bot, The bot fell prey to Kiaros' whip.

"Imbecile!" Stockfly screamed. "You're supposed to hit the turtle not my inventions."

"Shut your mouth, fly!" Kairos snapped.

Donnie took advantage of the bickering to make a break for the cross.

He clambered up the side of the machine, reaching for the cross.

Kairos noticed him and snapped his whip.

The whip hit the base of the machine, causing it to tilt back.

"NO! Stop, you'll ruin zzz everything!" Stockfly cried.

Donnie fell half off the machine, gripping it with one hand.

Donnie!" Raph cried, running forward to grab the base of the machine in an attempt to keep Donnie from falling off.

Donnie dangled precariously off the end of the machine, he lost his grip and fell.

"Donnie!" Raph called after him.

Donnie fell, He twisted in mid-air to try and look under him to see if there was anything to grab onto.

He was surprised to see an equally shocked Mikey clawing his way up the side of the building with his scythes. They locked eyes as Donnie sped by.

Mikey pulled his scythes out of the building and jumped after Donnie, grabbing his brother and swinging a scythe off towards the wall, catching it and swinging into the window.

They crashed through the glass into the cafeteria.

Most of the tables had been removed, but one or two still remained.

"We need to get to the roof." Donnie said, rolling to his feet and sprinting for the stairs, he threw open the door to the stairway and looked up towards the roof.

Tigerclaw met his gaze from behind the railing a story above him.

Donnie slammed the door shut behind him.

"Nevermind, run the other way."

The Tiger burst through the door and landed on Donnie's back, pinning him to the floor.

Donnie let out a strangled whine as the weight on his back pressed all the air out of his body. "Mikey, run!" He wheezed.

"I'm not going to leave you, D!" Mikey called back.

"He's too strong... Run" Donnie wheezed out with his last his breath.

Mikey looked on for a moment, his features frozen in an expression of clear distress, then he turned and ran.

"That one isn't as dumb as he looks." Tigerclaw said. He raised a paw over his head, intending to slam it down on the back of Donnie's skull and slam his head into the cafeteria tiles to knock him out.

Donnie pulled all of his limbs into his shell.

"An obnoxious reptile trick." Tigerclaw noted, "but it won't spare you."

Donnie felt the padded paws of the tiger on the sides of his shell as Tigerclaw picked him up and started carrying him. He heard the screech of a hinge swinging open, and felt a grate against his belly as Tigerclaw set him down. He heard a click and then everything went silent.

He waited for the longest moment see if anything would happen, when nothing did he risked peeking out of his shell to see where he was. He seemed to be looking out of some type of small window, he could see Tigerclaw's knees outside of it.

He unsheathed his arms to try and push himself up, but they banged into a pair of cramped metal walls, he pulled away from the biting cold of them. He tried to pull his legs out and found there was a third cramped metal wall behind him, he was stuck inside a metal box that was too small for him to come out of his shell in.

 _"What is he trying to do? Freeze me to death inside of this icebox?"_ Donnie thought, He wondered if that could actually happen, his turtle side wouldn't really be a help in this case, turtles hibernate. His human side wouldn't really help either, humans get very sick and sometimes die if pressed against cold metal all night. Although, the metal grate he was sitting on didn't feel as cold as the walls, he could have sworn it was just as frozen the rest of the box when he was placed on it. But it felt warm now, too warm, pizza warm.

He was in the oven. wasn't he?

He placed his palms on the oven door, and shoving off the back wall with his feet, pressed against the door with all his strength. He could see the pads of Tigerclaws foot against the glass, holding the door shut, He was trapped!

"Hey Jerk! Eat this!"

What?" Tiger claw turned away from the door. Donnie could see Mikey through the window, his little brother was holding up a fire extinguisher.

"Foolish turtle! I won't spare you this t- HACK!"

Mikey sprayed the fire retardant at the space Donnie could only guess was Tigerclaw's gullet. Cutting off the Tiger's villain speech.

Mikey hurried past the choaking Tigerclaw and threw open the oven, grabbing Donnie and dragging him out.

Donnie folded out of his shell and grabbed Mikey's wrist before making a break for the door.

The sputtering Tiger noticed an abandoned drum of grease and picked it up, throwing it across the cafeteria.

"Look out D!" Mikey called.

Donnie noticed the drum and dived out of the way. The drum barreled past them, rolling all the way across the room then smashing against the door, covering it in grease.

Tigerclaw pulled out a third pistol, (now, where did that come from?) And shot the grease, setting the door ablaze.

Not looking forward to the grease burn that would result from trying to kick open the door when it was in that state, Donnie called out "New plan." And made a beeline for one of the abandoned tables.

"Help me turn this over." Donnie asked Mikey. They turned the table over and pushed against it, sliding it across the floor in front of them as they charged Tigerclaw.

Tigerclaw fired at them wildly as they charged, scorching the table. The two teens cart wheeled out of the way as Tigerclaw placed his foot on the tabletop and kicked, sending it flying across the room until it smashed up cross the opposite wall.

Taking advantage of the moment, the two darted around him. Making a break for the opposite door.

"Look! An elevator." Donnie exclaimed.

He sprinted to the end of the hall and pressed the button. Rapping his fingers against the metal door impatiently. He looked back.

Tigerclaw lurched through the door, clutching his chest and gasping for breath.

He hit the button a few more times. "Come on, come on, come on."

"You're not hitting it hard enough!" Mikey said, pushing Donnie out of the way and slamming his fist against the elevator button frantically.

Tigerclaw let out a low growl and started shuffling faster.

The door opened, and they piled inside.

Donnie's eyes darted from the tiger shuffling towards them, to his brother slamming his fist down on the close door button and urging it move faster, to the corners of the elevator, looking for anything he could use as a weapon.

Tigerclaw snarled, getting down on all four feet and charging the elevator.

Donnie threw up his hands to protect himself from the gnashing teeth descending upon him, when the elevator door shut, clamping down on Tigerclaw's neck and holding him in place like a vice.

The two boys back against the wall entitled to sit together to get away from the snarling teeth in the scrabbling noises of Tigerclaw breaking his claws against the metal door of the elevator.

Elevators weren't supposed to clamp down on you like that, but this one was old, it must had a broken sensor of some kind.

Tiger claw managed to pull his head out of the elevator door, and also managed to shove his pistol in between the door before it shut, keeping a few inches of it open.

He shoved his fingers into the opening, starting to pry the doors open.

Oh man, we're in trouble." Donnie whimpered.

Mikey looked up at the ceiling, "I have an idea." Tigerclaw managed to force his way into the elevator sliding in and through the door before it shut behind him. He scanned the small space for any sign of the turtles, then looked up, noting that the escape hatch on the top of the elevator was open, he leapt up and grabbed the top of the hatch with his paws before forcing his head through to look out it. He spotted the turtles in their new position clinging to the cables of the elevator, Donnie was holding on with one hand and holding onto Mikey's ankle with another.

Mikey was angling down upside down over the elevator cable, whittling it away with his scythe.

"HaSTA LA vista, kitty!" Tigerclaw gave one last distressed mewl before the elevator tumbled down into the darkness, taking him with it. Donnie pulled Mikey up, "come on, we have to get to the roof. Ralph is fighting all by himself up there."

(Scene break)

Raphael moved from side to side, making sure to keep out of the way of the whip.

"Why won't you stop moving?" Kairos snapped in frustration. _"Yeah, like that's going to happen."_ Raph thought to himself sarcastically.

Raph danced around to the machine while the bots soldered it back in place, why Stockman made them to fight when he could've made them into engineering bots was a mystery, sure, would've driven up the unemployment rate, but he would've been rich.

Raph managed to maneuver his frustrated opponent in between Raphael and the machine. He smirked to himself, and charged.

He jumped high using the other man's face as a platform, then leaped onto the machine, climbing his way up it like a lizard.

He grabbed the cross -and- placing both of his feet on the machine, pulled again with all of this strength, wiggling it this way that until it dislodged.

Kicking off he did a backflip and landed softly on his feet, holding up the cross, he placed a finger on his eyelid and pulled it down, sticking out his tongue, "nyah."

He pivoted on his foot, intending to make a break for the door, when his body jerked to a stop.

One of the robots had grabbed onto the cross and had a death grip on it.

Rath gritted his teeth and grabbed the cross with both hands, getting into an impromptu tug-of-war match with the robot.

He heard a cracking crackling of the energy whip, and spotted Kairos out of his the corner of his eye.

Raphael maneuvered the robot between him and Kairos, so when Kairos sent his whip. He caught the bot instead.

Their tug-of-war battle continued, Kairos tugging the bot, and the robot tugging against the cross.

On one side of the roof, the elevator door shifted as someone on the other side tried to pry it open, on the other side of the room, the door slammed open as Leo and Karai made their entrance.

Karai threw her sword at the energy whip, cutting off the end.

Kairos pulled it back and pressed a button, it merely grew back.

"Good fight for something like you, I'm going to have to make an example of one of you and I think you're my pick, I know, I'll turn back to the clock to when you thought you were a member of the Foot. Would you like to go back to your old life?"

"Never!" Karai screamed, pulling out her pistol and pointing it at Kairos.

He threw out his whip, wrapping it around the gun.

The electricity in the whip overloaded the gauge in the laser pistol.

The energy gauge showed one bar of energy, then two, then four, then an overload sign blinked on it and it exploded.

"Karai!" Leo called.

Karai's mutant resilience kept the blast from killing her outright, but she swayed uneasily from foot to foot, then fell to her knees. The energy whip wrapped around her torso and yanked her forward against Kairos.

"Surrender! Or I'll fill her full of so many volts her pet cat will keel over."

Leo paused, hesitantly, unsure of what to do.

Raph watched Kairos for a moment, sizing him up. Not liking what he saw, Raph threw down his weapons. When Mikey saw what his older brother did he followed suite.

Leo's hands trembled, but managed to loosen their grip enough for the sword to slip out of his palms and clatter to the ground.

Kairos watched them. "Good, but I think perhaps we need a demonstration of why the creation doesn't go against the creator.

Leo held his palms up and opened his mouth to cry out, but Donnie beat him to it.

"Wait!" Donnie cried.

Everyone's attention turned to him. Donnie gulped, feeling less sure of his gambit now. "Er, the whole reason you were doing this was because you wanted me to fix the time scepter right? Well, if you let her go unharmed, I'll go fix it for you."

Kairos remember his plot and grinned, "Deal. Or else." He added unnecessarily.

Donnie swallowed and walked up to the time scepter. The wand looked smooth and elegant as ever, if he hadn't been told other wise, he'd have never even guessed that there was tec in there. How was he going to fix it?

He climbed the three steps up to it and walked behind it.

Okay, first order of business. What has Rennet told him about the scepter?

Nothing usable, she only spoke of the time scepter not as a machine but as a type of sentient entity. Could that indicate that the time scepter had a type of AI in? It was a long shot, but…

He looked from Leo's distressed face to Ralph's seething one. then to Karai twitching in her bindings at Kairos's feet to Mikey trembling in the corner on the verge of tears.

Donnie and let out a shaky exhale and then closed his eyes. "Please help me." He asked, placing his hands on the shaft of the time scepter.

A burst of light streamed out of the time scepter, forcing everyone on the roof talk to cover their eyes to prevent blindness.

"There you are young man," a booming voice called, "I sent people to look for you."

"No, no! it can't be."

The light dimmed down enough that everyone could look at the newcomer.

A short, chubby, doughy faced man, the likes of which you would expect to see working at a bank, not the office of time itself tottered his waythrough the doorway of light.

I'm very disappointed in you, young man, "Lord simultaneous said in a much less impressive, much less moving voice, "I'm going to be cleaning this up for months,and that's providing I let Rennet take care of the Ground Zero of this mess. Now you come along and I'll send Rennet to clean up this mess,"

"No. No, you can't make me." "Oh no?" Lord Simultaneous asked. snapping his fingers.

The white light behind him started swirling in a vortex. It rose up and then slammed down over Kairos swallowing them whole.

"Sorry about this, and don't worry about the new time scepter causing trouble, I've already sent Rennet after it and I'm sure she's on her way here to pick it up."

And with that he was gone.

Leo rushed over to Karai and pulled the whip off her. "Karai! Karai!" He called.

She stirred, "Leo."

"I'm so glad you're OK."

She punched him in the shoulder, "Did you really think you could get rid of me that easily? "She asked, "I was just stunned a bit, that 's all."

"Looks like everything's going our way for once, big brother." Raph said clapping Donnie on the shoulder." Little brother- big- Ok dude. you've got to help me out here."

"Karai's a year older than us and I'm slightly older than Mikey, but slightly younger than you." Donnie explained.

"What?" Leo asked, "You were our little brother this whole time? Why didn't you tell us? We could have finished this fight so much faster if you let us know that."

"We could have?" Donnie said, confused about how this information could have helped any.

"Yeah," Raph said, pulling out his sai's and raising them above his head. "Don't you know we big brothers become _invincible_ when defending our little bros? That's just science."

Donnie tried to stifle a snigger. "I think I've patched you guys up after a fight enough times to know that that's not true."

Leo slipped an arm around Donnie's neck and pulled him into a one arm hug. "You thought we were bleeding? That wasn't blood. That was liquid determination trying to leave our bodies."

Raph put an arm around Donnie's neck too, forcing Donnie to stoop to their level. "Now come'er you, we've got 15 years worth of noogie's we owe you."

"Guys." Donnie laughed, "I already had enough of those the first time around."

"Group hug!" Mikey announced. Leaping at them arms outstretched and knocking all three of them to the ground.

Donnie slammed to the ground, pinned by his brothers' weight. He let out a whoosh of air, then started laughing. Man,he'd missed this. And the best part was he would get to keep having moments like this without end. Because Kairos was lying wasn't he? He'd been lying about everything else so why not this? Donnie hugged his brothers close, they might not be exactly like his other brothers, but they were his brothers and he was glad he got to stay with them.

"I _get to stay."_ He thought, hugging them even tighter. "I _get to stay."_

Karai smiled at their antics. A noise caught her attention and she followed the sound to a bit of rubble that was moving.

Stockfly dragged himself out of the rubble weakly, looking beat up and ready to fall over. Which he did, landing on his stomach.

Stockfly stayed still for a second, then started to tremble and make weird buzzing noises. It took Karai a moment to realize he was laughing.

The hair on the back of her neck stood up and she was on him in a second. Slamming him farther into the ground. "What's so funny fly? Are you pulling something?"

This got the attention of the turtles who all sat up to watch.

"Foolish-zzz- Girl, I've already won, You think you've beaten me? I Have only begun to-"

Karai grabbed one of his wings and yanked it out of his back, causing the turtles to flinch.

"YOW!"

"WHAT DID YOU DO!? Tell me or I'll yank out your other wing."

"You'll pay for that! You'll pay. You'll all pay- YEOWCH!"

Karai pulled out his other wing.

Now the fly was mad enough to talk. "You think my plan was to let those meatheads try to capture you? Why would I? They've never managed before. No, My plan was to distract you. While my machine did its work."

"We pulled the power cell out of your machine, Stockman, It won't charge no matter how much time you give it."

"You pulled out one of the power cells I put in there, you forgot about the one -zzz- I got at the mall. And they should be done powering up right about... Now."

On cue the machine started buzzing to life.

 _"No."_ Donnie thought, getting to his feet and racing toward the machine.

 _"No."_ he thought, as he neared the platform in front of the time scepter.

 _"No."_ He thought, as he reached out to grab the scepter and pull it out of the machine before-

A large blast of energy enveloped the wand, filling the platform with white light and blasting Donnie backward onto his shell.

He sat up and held up a hand to keep the light out of his eyes.

"No." He muttered. Looking at the imposing figure looming above them.

The Shredder was back.


	11. Confessions

Chapter 11

Shredder was formidable on ordinary days, this was the foe that put Leo into a coma for three months.

But this wasn't an ordinary day, they weren't fresh, they had been fighting all night and had all been put through the emotional wringer.

And then there was the power armor.

Shredder was decked in some new armor today, bulkier than his usual outfit.

It was way too out there to be tradition ninja garb, that was power armor, He was sure of it.

Whether it was made by Stockman or it was stolen from the time stream for shredder specifically Donnie didn't know, but the sight of it made him want to whimper.

Karai didn't seem to have any such reservations.

"HYAH!" She lunged, screaming, at the Shredder, Tanto raised.

He blocked the blow. "Karai?"

"Don't speak, just fight!" She snapped.

"I don't know what Yoshi offered you to make you betray me, but believe me Karai, I can take you so much farther." Shredder started.

"Lier! You have nothing to offer me, nothing I could ever want. Nothing!"

Shredder gritted his teeth in anger and threw her across the roof. Karai hit the ground hard and didn't manage to roll on her feet the way she usually did. She groaned, still worn out from being caught in that explosion earlier.

Raph roared and charged.

Shredder grabbed him and bent his arms behind his head painfully.

Leo and Mikey darted in from the sides, weapons raised.

Shredder thrust Raphael in front of Leo, Leo skidded to a stop, not willing to risk stabbing Raph.

Shredder flung Raph off to the side into Mikey then headbutted Leo in the face before he could get his sword up.

While this was going on Donnie was retrieving his smoke bombs and Bo halves.

He charged the Shredder.

Shredder raised his arm, his power armor shot out blades. Donnie threw a smoke bomb to the ground and weaved in between the blades while approaching under the cover of smoke.

As the smoke dissipated Donnie slid under the Shredders legs and flipped onto the older man's back.

Wrapping his legs around the Shredder arms to bind them he raised his Bo and deployed his blade before plunging it into the back of Shredder's neck.

The Bo bounced off the armor that covered even that part of Shredder's body, so Donnie tried a different approach.

Using his blade as a screw he twisted the hinges that attached the armor to Shredder Body, trying to undo them.

Shredder stooped over low, then snapped his head back, smacking the metal back of his helmet into Donnie's beak, knocking the teen onto the ground.

Two blades extended from Shredders gauntlet, he slammed them into the ground on either side of Donnie's neck, pinning him there.

A third blade slowly extended out of the gauntlet, inching for Donnie's throat.

"NO!"

Something smashed into Shredders body, knocking it out of the gauntlet.

Shredder swiped at it to make it retreat back far enough for him to see what he was fighting.

"Yoshi. You never can resist can you?"

"You don't touch my son, devil," Splinter said firmly, "ever."

"ARGH!" Shredder roared in rage, charging Splinter.

Splinter kept his moves fluid, sliding out of out Shredder's range each time he tried to get into take a swipe at the old master.

Splinter ghosted past Shredder, slipping past him and unlatching a hinge each time he went by.

The power armor was slowing Shredder down, ever more so as Splinter managed to unhinge enough of it to cause the armor to hang around shredders body like a dead weight. Even Shredder realized it was becoming a liability and wrenched it off himself.

The seconds it took Shredder to throw the armor to the side was all the time Splinter needed to be on him. Slamming him across the roof into the machine Stockman had set up.

Shredder dragged himself up the steps to the platform while forcing himself onto his feet.

Splinter got on all fours and made to cross the rooftop to attack, coming in fast.

Shredder grabbed for the first solid thing he could get his hands on to defend himself with.

The time scepter.

Shredder raised the time scepter in front of his to swipe when the time was right, but before Splinter could close the distance between them a bright light shot out of the time wand, opening one portal beneath Splinter's feet and another above his head. Splinter fell in one fell out the other and kept going, stuck in perpetual free fall.

"What?" Shredder asked aloud, he examined the time scepter, "What is this?"

"Don't let him get the Time scepter!" Donnie screamed from his pinned position.

"Time scepter?"

The turtles and Karai charged Shredder as a team, moving toward him like an unstoppable flood.

"If this… thing can control time and space then… I could use it to get anything I want. Anything I desire."

"HYAH!" Karai screamed, leaping at him Tanto raised.

"I could even get my daughter back."

Shredder turned the time wand on Karai, shooting out another ray of light that struck her in the chest.

"KARIA!" Leo screamed.

The portals dissipated and Splinter landed in a painful heap on the ground.

"Mi...wa." He cried out weakly.

Karai convulsed under the onslaught of the time scepter, kicking and writhing. Her flailing limbs began to change shape, her fingers melded together and spouted fangs, her skin paled and her nose lengthened.

The time energy cut out, leaving Karai hissing and writhing on the ground in her serpent form.

"NO!" Shredder screamed. "Not again! Never again!" His gritted his teeth and turned to Splinter.

"You! You're the cause of all this, how do you do it? How do you force the fates to thwart my will at every turn? Did you curse me? that's the answer, isn't it? This was all your doing."

"You have twisted the truth around in your mind for so long it has become unrecognizable to you Saki." Splinter spat.

"You have taken everything from me demon, now I will take something from you!"

He aimed the time scepter at the machine behind him and shot the base, aging it to rust.

The heavy structure began to groan against it's weakened base, tilted forward towards Donnie.

Donnie pulled all of his weight forward until he managed to pull the gauntlet away. He tried to make a split second decision on whether to jump for it or retreat into his shell when Splinter slammed into him sending him flying across the room. He hit the ground and rolled to a stop,pushing himself up to a sitting position he gasped.

Master Splinter was half obscured by the rubble on his back. Donnie breath hitched in his throat, it felt hard to breathe.

Shredder curled his lip in disgust then turned to fire on the other turtles.

"NO!" April ran out of the stairway in front of them, levitating the time amulet in front of her and opening it.

The two time devices hit each other and started a tug of war between the two streams of time energy.

The time scepter started to push the energy back toward the amulet, which wasn't putting out enough energy to push the stream back toward the scepter, but was putting out enough energy to keep the energy from pushing back toward the turtles.

What resulted was a large ball of energy forming in the middle between them. A pair of fingers gripped each side of the ball and started to push it, then, giving one mighty push, they parted the sides of the time ball with a crack that sounded like it had reverberated throughout all of time and space.

Rennet stood in the spot the time ball had been before.

"Alright, I'm finally in. Hey? Is that Shredder? Like, the Shredder?"

"Rennet he's got the time scepter!" April exclaimed.

"Yikes, well that won't do at all, I'll have to fix this before anything else gets damaged."

Rennet pointed her scepter at Shredder, "alright big guy, let me show you what a real time scepter can do."

The rooftop glowed, blinding everyone with the scepters brilliance, the light then dies down, leaving a triceratops in its place.

Rennet blinked, "That wasn't what I was going for."

The rooftop corner started to rumble under the dinosaur's weight.

The cornered teens screamed when they realized what was coming next.

Donnie screamed as the corner tore away from the edge of the building and Rennet, April, the dino,and his three brothers all pitched into the waters below.

He ran to the edge of the roof to look over the side.

Could they survive a fall from that height?

The teens screamed as they fell.

Rennet's scepter glowed and their descent slowed, soon they were drifting down as gently as a leaf caught on the wind, until they were a story away from the water, then the scepter's power cut out and they pitched into the water like a stone.

He heard a groan, behind him.

Donnie ran over and tried to dig the prone rat out of his prison.

"Don-atello." Splinter rasped.

"I'll get you out, Sensi." Donnie said. his voice breaking, breathing just became harder and harder as his breath kept trying to hitch and sob.

He felt wetness pooling up around his eyes and wiped it away.

"I'm sorry." He muttered.

He felt a furry palm on his cheek. "No, I am sorry."

He paused his frantic digging. "What do you have to be sorry for?" He sniffed, "This is all my fault, Kairos knew what he was doing when he picked his mark, if it was Leo he'd have seen through it at the drop of a hat and we wouldn't be here right now. I see why you depend on him so much."

"No, Donatello, that is not true, it is I who should be apologizing. I didn't hide in the sewers and send you out by yourselves because I wanted to put all that on you, I did it because I was ashamed."

"Ashamed." Donnie's mind drew a blank, what could his amazing Sensi have to be ashamed off.

"I was ashamed of my form, I look like a demon, and I didn't want anyone to see me like this. Also... I was afraid."

"But you're strong enough to take on all four of us, what can we do up there that you can't?"

"I wasn't afraid of something happening to me for my sake, I was afraid of something happening to me for yours. Leonardo takes too much on himself, I can see you are the same way, if anything happened to me you four wouldn't have a father, and he'd feel he need to become my replacement. I worried about what happened to you when you left without me. But I trusted you were skilled enough you could escape danger and make your way back to me, So I feared this less then what would happen to you without a father."

The tears stopped falling, but he could still feel the stream of them on his cheeks.

"You... never said anything."

"And for that I am sorry."

"What a touching reunion."

The gravely voice sent Donnie's heart racing and he picked up a steel beam.

"Get away from him." He ordered.

Shredder looked completely non-pulsed by his fury and continued to approach.

Donnie charged and tried to take a swipe at shredder's skull, Shredder caught the beam and flung it away, And Donnie with it.

Splinter tried to pull himself out of the rubble weakly, Shredder grabbed him by the front of his kimono and yanked him out of the heap.

"Goodbye, Hamato Yoshi." And with that, he flung Splinter off the side of the hospital.

"NO!" Donnie charged the Shredder and tried to punch him.

The older man's ninjutsu was so advanced he adjusted his stance and braced his body so well he caught the punch as easily as if Donnie was the teenager he was and not a trained mutant fighter.

Donnie tried to punch with his other hand but Shredder caught that one too.

*HISS* Karai slithered in fast, spitting poison into Shredders eye.

Even as damaged as it had been in that fire 16 years ago he still had plenty of pain receptors working and he howled. Dropping Donnie as he did so.

Karai flung herself off the roof and fell into the water in a perfect swan dive.

Donnie kicked himself, why was he wasting time with Shredder when he should be rescuing his Sensi.

Donnie bounded towards the edge and leaped. Shredder caught him by the ankle and jerked him back onto the roof.

Shredder somehow flipped him so the older man could grab him by the top of his Shell.

Donnie squeezed his upper and lower arm together, intending to jab Shredder in the stomach with his elbow when the older man's hand managed to snake its way around his side and over his throat. He gave up on jabbing in favor of struggling for breath.

"You might be of use to me yet." Shredder muttered. He turned and lurched his way back into the hospital, dragging a reluctant Donnie with him.

The teens dragged themselves onto dry land.

"What was that?" Raph asked.

"That was the power of the time scepter, a machine that can travel through all of time and space, it's also capable of bringing anything in time and space to the present. " Rennet gestured to the dinosaur dragging itself on land behind them and giving itself a shake.

"Shredder has one of those? Oh man, this is a disaster," Mikey said. "He could go back in time and kill the inventor of pizza!"

"What did he do to Karai?" Leo demanded. "He turned her back in time to when she first mutated, new mutants can come out a bit... confused." Rennet explained,"I should have been able to turn her back to normal," she examed her time scepter.

"It has a mind of its own, but It's never done anything like that before- Oh! I think I know what's going on.

It's that other time wand. There's only enough room for one, so that fakers feeding off the real thing to try and sustain itself.

It's a parasite. " she looked at the stick in her sympathetically,"Poor thing, It must not be on its best legs right now."

"Is that what that white haired freak's been using to mess with us? I knew he was up to something." Raph snapped.

"That guy made a parallel universe just to try and get what he wanted. I mean, as far as the multi-verse is concerned not a big deal, I mean, We get a new cut off dimension every time an atom splits.

But as far as the time palace is concerned! This violates every time ethic we've got! You aren't supposed to create a whole new timeline everytime you want to make something go your way. That's total abuse of the hourglass." Rennet said.

"Guys! Karai? Splinter? Donnie?" Remember them?" Leo reminded.

"*Hiss* Leeoo..."

Leo spun to face the water.  
"Karai!" He called desperately.

Karai's head poked above the surface of the water to look at them, her tail lifed out of the water, wrapped around the prone body of Master Splinter.

"Master Splinter!" The turtles called, running over as Karai desposited the rat onto dry land.

Mikey and Raph wrapped their arms around him and hugged him tight. Leo stood over them, leaning in close to see if Splinter was still breathing.

"Dona-tello." Splinter muttered. Shuddering before cloesing his eyes and blacking out.

Leo looked out at the water just in time to see Karai dissapear below the durface.

"Karai?" Leo called, " Where are you going?" He called, in his distress he leaped into the river and swam around trying to find her, a futile gesture that turned up nothing.

Rennet looked at the top of the rooftop, "Ok, we just need to go up there and destroy the other time wand, then I can fix everything, I can't use the time scepter at it's full potential as long as that other one is feeding off the time stream, but the one Shredder has should be just as uesless, so I think we're even. Lets just hope he doesn't accidentally summon anything he shoudn't"

There was a crack like lighting as a large stream of time energy shot out the top of the hospital.

The energy swirled around New York for a moment then started to converge above Shredder, forming into a large ball.

The light died away, revealing the smooth metal form of the technodrome.


	12. Endgame

"What went into this wand that even the Kraang can't recreate?" Shredder demanded.

"That's not the original wand, It's a replica, The original has a mind of its own and is too hard to control, but that one is missing something that I haven't been able to figure out." Donnie said, cringing away.

"A mind of its own... If this is a battle of will and not of science, then I might be able to bend it to my whim yet. After all, I was able to bring forth the techno-drome." He held up the wand

"Alright wand ... Give me what I want."

He pointed the time scepter at the middle of the room and waited.

The wand glowed, a time portal opened, a Roman fell out of the portal and landed in a heap in front of Shredder, looked confused for a moment, then ecstatic.

The man started chattering in Latin, and while Donnie wasn't as practiced as he'd like he was sure the man was saying "Thank you, my savior, if you hadn't brought me here with your magic I would have surely perished in the mouth of the lions."

Shredder grunted in disgust, then started banging the time wand against his chair.

Donnie cringed instinctively. He didn't know what would happen if you tried percussive maintenance on an artifact that could bend all of reality but he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.

Suddenly the wand went berserk and spewed out a large stream of white energy that obscured half the ship from Donnie's sight. When the energy cleared a European-style dragon the size of a double-decker bus unfolded its wings and screeched before grabbing the screaming roman with its jaws, tossing him in the air and swallowing him whole.

"Who dares summon the dread dragon Deathfang, I am fire! I am death! I am-"

Shredder got sick of listening to it and picked up the missile launcher he had leaning against his chair, firing off a round he blackened the side of the dragon's face.

The dragon cowered before him. "I apologize greatly sir, I didn't realize you were a dragon too. I must congratulate you on your amazing shapeshifting ability, If I hadn't seen your fire I never would have guessed-"

"Stop sniveling and do something useful, go outside and patrol the border of the technodrome, Just don't fly so high airplanes can see you."

The kraang opened a window for the dragon to fly out of.

The dragon got stuck in the small space and started to shake the whole room with its flailing, the Kraang got behind the dragon and started to shove.

"Alright wand, I'll give you one more chance, Give me something useful."

He held up the time scepter, it started to glow. A time portal opened, Bebop and Rocksteady fell out of it holding a six pack of sodas.

The mutant Rhino fell on his but with a thump that sent reverberations through the room.

"I said something _useful_!" Shredder barked.

(scene break)

"Are we really doing this?" Leo asked. "Going to attack an alien mother ship with a tank, a dinosaur, and a pair of boots?"

"Those are magnetic boots, Leo," Rennet said. "They'll let you walk right up the side of the techno-drome."

"It's just- and so- I mean- Everything was so normal a few days ago."

"Just another average day for the three fingered people living with the giant rat that taught them ninjitsu in the sewers." Raph offered.

"I meant normal for us." Leo shot back.

"Dudes. This is off the hook. We're gonna be heroes." Mikey added.

"More importantly, we're going to get Don back." April reminded them.

"And the time scepter, there's no telling what kind of trouble Shredder could get into with that," Rennet added, "Fortunately for us, I've got the real deal, so all you guys have to do is get me there and I can do the rest."

"I'm not sure it's going to be that simple." Leo added, "I mean. Shredder is a master ninja, He's got both Donnie and the other scepter."

"Yeah," Raph replied, "And your great-and-powerful wand thingy only managed to get us a dino, a pair of boots, and an ancient tank from world war II."

"She's not feeling well now, I'm letting her rest because she'll need her strength for what's to come, but I know the real deal will beat out the faker wand, there's no way she can lose."

"Techno-drome in sight." Raph said, looking through his periscope.

The tank sped onward heroically, Raph's bravado started to fade a bit when he caught sigh of just how big the thing he was attacking was.

He tensed, "Incoming!"

The sides of the technodrome started opening up in places as the Kraang began to filter out of the sphere, Sitting inside smaller ships that looked like flying metal jellyfish.

Raph readied his shooter and blasted off a shot. "There's no way this is going to work, we don't have enough ammo for all of these."

"Hmm, Maybe she can help one more time before resting up," Rennet said.

She touched the end of the time scepter to the floor of the tank.

The tank changed under their feet, turning into a new tank filled with fancy controls and buttons.

Leo looked out a new periscope that popped up and cried, "move to the left!"

Raph pulled a lever and the tank immediately jerked to the side, dodging an energy beam.

"Now that's more like it." Raph said.

"The other passengers tried not to cry out too much as Raph jerked the tank to and fro, trying to dodge, they tried not to feel too sick after enduring the vibrations that went through the tank when each round was fired. (This was something that affected turtles more than humans)

"Getting in close now." Raph said.

"We're up Mikey." Leo said.

Leo and Mikey picked up the strange boxes Rennet had conjured earlier and placed them on their feet.

The boxes molded around the shape of their feet to form something akin to a pair of boots. Leo threw open the top of the tank and he and Mikey both leaped out.

They raced along the ground to the side of the tecknodrome, Leo reached it first and paused at the base a moment, trying to decide how to proceed. He lifted one leg and placed his foot against the side of the drome, sticking to it. He lifted his other foot, feeling wobbly, and placed that one on the drome too. He waved his arms for a second, feeling the need to help his balance in anyway he could. And tried to lift one foot and then the other to proceed up the side of the drome, attempting to ignore the feeling of gravity attempting to drag him back down.

"Woo-hoo!" Mikey cried, running past him, "This is co cool."

Leo swallowed and leaned forward as far as he could manage, then ran full tilt up the side of the drome.

"For Master Splinter" he cried.

"For Donnie!" Mikey cried.

They weaved in and out of the turrets that pulled themselves out of the side of the drome, Leo slicing down a few as he passed them. And they soon reached the midway point.

"Man, this is like clearing a video game on easy." Mikey crowed," I thought this was supposed to be the boss fight too, where's the challenge?"

"Don't count them out yet Mikey, we haven't got to the boss fight yet." Leo reminded.

"Yeah, but I thought there'd be some kind of challenge-?"

 **ROAR**

A dragon thrice the length of a Honda flew up alongside them.

"Dude! This better not end with a guy in a silly mushroom hat telling us our princess is in another castle." Mikey complained.

"Oh come on, The aliens and time travel weren't enough!" Leo exclaimed, "that better be a robot dragon or I am done."

"You are done _for._ " The dragon quipped, swooping in and grabbing Leo in its claws.

(scene break)

"I'll get them, I'll get them yet." Shredder held up the time scepter.

"Hear me wand! Hear me and obey my command, bring me an army that will sweep aside everything in its path like a tsunami."

The wand glowed. a portal opened, and a giant wave of water crashed into the room.

"I said _like_ a tsunami, Like!" Shredder snapped. But anything he said after that was lost over the roar of the water. Donnie sucked in a large puff of breath before the water swept over him, jerking him as the water wretched his arms against the manacles with enough force to dislocate the shoulders of a human. He chanced opening an eye, protected by the third eyelid, and saw a Krang bot getting swept by him.

He wrapped his feet around it and hugged it close to him.

The Kraang took this for an attack and opened it's shoulder hatch to deploy a laser. Donnie craned his neck and twisted to grab the sides of the laser it his teeth. Pushing against the Bot with his feet and pulling with his mouth he managed to pull the laser off its perch.

The Kraang was swept away by the water, Donnie tried to keep his hold on the laser, fighting against the push of the water and the pushback of the intermittently firing laser.

With a quick calculation and a stretch that put a crick in his neck, Donnie bounced the laser off the floor back at the manacles and blasted away the metal.

The water swept him away and he held out a fist as he was carried toward a whirlpool forming over a hatch in the floor.

"I wonder if this is what it feels like to be superman?" Donnie wondered before getting caught in the whirlpool.

"This part probably not." He thought, he crossed his arms over his chest and allowed the water to spin him.

The world dissolved into a blur as he was sucked down into the lower levels.

As water drained out of the control room, Donnie knew the roar of the water would obscure any sound coming from there, but he imagined the Shredder letting out a shriek of rage.

(scene break)

"Leo, no!" Mikey cried. He deployed the scythe from his chuck and spun the chain, letting go and letting it wrap around the dragons hind leg.

There was a metallic Shwoop, As the boots were pulled off the side of the technodrome, magnetic force or no.

In retrospect, he wasn't sure what he was expecting.

"I am fire I am Death." the dragon claimed.

"I am Michelangelo, I too have seen movies." Mikey answered.

Mikey clawed his way up the chain until he was at the dragons leg, then climbed up that until he was by the dragon's spine.

He tried to scamper on the dragon's back, its scales were rubbing his skin off and the spines on the dragons back looked really uncomfortable, so he gave up and tried something else."

"I am doom, I am your worst-"

Mikey swung his chuck round and round then let go, chucking it in the direction of the dragon's mouth.

"Nightmar-hrmmth." Mikey's chucks wrapped themselves around the dragon's mouth, clamping it shut.

The end of the chucks whacked the dragon in the face, surprising it and making it shut its eyes, blinded, it spun out of control and slammed into the top of the technodrome. Leo dropped from its claws, and Mikey fell off its back.

Leo rolled into a fighting position, still not quite used to the sucked down feeling he got as his boots reattached themselves to the drome.

Mikey did the same.

The dragon scraped its claws against the chuck stuck to its face and managed to fling it off. Mikey rolled across the top of the drome and managed to grab the pair before it fell over the side.

"Give it up, you- you- Seriously? Dragons?" Leo said.

"I will not be defeated, Dragon kind will flourish, mere kappa cannot vanquish us."

"Dude... He thinks we're from japan." Mikey said.

"We aren't kappa, we're ninjas." Leo quipped.

"No matter, the outcome will be the same." The dragon blew fire at them.

They rolled out of the way.

The dragon's fire hit the side of the drome, in a thin but powerful flame that sawed through the top of the dome like a laser, sawing a hole.

Mikey gulped. Leo repressed the urge to do the same, he didn't want to know hot that fire had to be to saw through something that was designed to hold up to the pressures of space.

Wait, maybe he could-

Leo charged the dragon from behind, he leaped at the back of the dragons head and kicked both of his feet into it, knock the dragon off balance and skittering its poorly traction-ed claws across the slippery top of the techno drome. Pitching it forward into the hole.

The dragon hit the floor below hard and the rolled over, falling down a large hutch in the floor that led somewhere downstairs.

Leo looked around as Mikey hopping in after him.

"This room looked like a hurricane hit it." Leo noted, stepping carefully across the waterlogged floor.

"It was that which is known as a tsunami actually." A voice answered him.

"A Kraang!" Leo accused, seething at the sight of the mandroid, He would have attacked, but the sight of the ripped-off arms and legs stopped him.

"Where's Donnie ?" Asked Mikey.

"That which is known as the turtle snuck away, Shredder left to go hunt it down."

"Donnie's running around in this place all alone?" Mikey asked.

Not for long if Shredder has anything to say about it, so we have to find him first." Leo said.

Mikey nodded and the Two turtles leaped down the hatch.

(scene break)

"Umpth." April said for the umpteenth time as Raph spun the tank away from another energy blast. "Are we ever going to get in there?" She asked.

"Patience princess, there's a whole lotta ugly out there to blow away. Might take a while." Raph said.

The team screamed as the tank rocked.

"What's happening?" Rennet asked.

"I don't know, we seem to be gaining air." Raph exclaimed.

"Gaining… Air?" April asked,

She and Rennet climbed to the top of the ladder

April threw open the hatch and poked her head out,

Rennet poked her head out on the other side of the hatch.

Two Jellyfish ships had grabbed the tank and were flying away with it.

"I think I see our problem." April said.

"Knock them off the tank." Rennet said.

"But we'll fall." April said peeking over the side of the tank, she could see the top of the technodrome from there.

"Trust me, I've got this. Rennet reassured.

April pulled out her tesson and whacked one of the ship's in the face, breaking the glass.

It should have been ineffectual, but it seemed to annoy the ships enough that they both let go.

April screamed, Raph screamed. Rennet held up her wand.

A large parachute attached itself to the top of the tank, jerking it to a bouncy stop.

Rennet looked at the parachute in confusion. "an angoian anti-gravity chute? I was trying to turn the tank into a helicopter.

Raph had covered his head with his arms and huddled down after the tank started falling, after a few moments of not going splat he slowly pulled his arms away from his eyes and peered into the periscope, then laughed madly.

"OH YEAH! I FEEL LIKE A MEMBER OF THE A-TEAM! LET'S FLY THIS TANK!"

He grabbed the levers and spun the spun the turret toward the at the kraang ships and fired, knocked them out of the sky, some of the smoking wreckages flying into other ships.

Another few shots fired pushed the tank over the tehnodrome.

"INCOMING!" April cried. As they approached the technodrome.

They landed on the technodrome and began to roll down over the side of it.

Raph blasted ships and turrets left and right. April and Rennet screamed, this was worse than a roller coaster.

They both ducked into the tank and shut the hatch as they plunged off the side of the drome.

The parachute's antigravitons helped them but it was still a rocky landing.

The remaining ships closed in on them.

"Might as well make this count." Raph said to himself and rolled the turret towards the drome, blowing a hole in the side.

"April! Rennet, I made a hole." Raph told them.

"Gotcha!" They called back, leaping out the hatch and scrambling up the side of the drome towards the hole.

April and Rennet made it to the hole and as soon as they did a floodlight fell on them, blinding them, they covered their eyes.

A swarm of Kraang approached them.

"GOONGALA!"

Casey Jones swooped into the room riding the Triceratops

The large dino preceded to smash apart the Kraang mercilessly.

Casey jumped off the Dino's back and lit a cherry bomb attached to his puck and hit it at the Kraang.

"Got your back, Red."

"Thanks, Casey."

"Yeah, thanks, Casey." Rennet added eagerly.

The two girls edged around the chaos to another room and raced along the hallway.

"Where are we going?"

"To the top of the technodrome… I think?" Rennet answered.

The girls glanced around. There was a surprising lack of Kraang inside the Kraang mothership.

They wondered where they had all gone. Did they really use up all their members in the fight outside?

They stepped into the next room.

Rennet ran ahead. April made to follow then started to slow, something isn't right, she thought.

"Rennet look out!" April cried, she threw her tessen at Rennet.

Rennet was surprised to see April attack her at first, then became less so as Aprils tessen bounced of Bebop in mid-air, causing the warthog to cry out. "Hey, that hurt!"

"Bebop!" April sneered.

"He's not the only one here." Tigerclaw said, moving into view.

"Do you know how to fight Rennet?" April asked.

Rennet smiled.

(scene break)

Donnie awoke to find himself floating face up in a poorly light space, aching horrible.

He must have passed out after spinning so much. whirlpools would make anyone dizzy.

He guessed he was in an engine room of some kind, He must have washed pretty far away If the Kraang hadn't found him in the time it took him to come too.

There was a hole far above his head, which must have been where the water brought him in here through, but he was having a hard time spotting anywhere he could escape the room from.

There wouldn't be an open hatch, the water would have gone through it if there was, but maybe there was a closed one somewhere.

He swam to the side of the room and started to feel alongside the walls. He found a hatch door, but there seemed to be special instruction for opening it and they were written in a scrawl. He would have a hard time reading it without a magnifying glass in a well-lit room. In this lighting, it would be impossible.

Maybe there was something he could find to create a makeshift booklight. He turned and swam towards the other side of the room, scanning what little he could see.

This damn room was as big as an Olympic swimming pool. And the water was much darker.

Donnie scanned the water until he spotted a light glowing softly near the bottom of the pool.

Alright! Something had finally gone right! Usually, his bad luck kept him from having good breaks like this. Sometimes Donnie thought the fates had decided that since Donnie had gotten most of the brains they would even the scores by giving his little brother all of the luck. Donnie usually was the living embodiment of Murphy's law. He mentioned this to Raph once and his brother had muttered something about having turtle luck and it probably ran in the family cause why else would they have gone through half of the things they did?

He swam towards it and ripped it out of its console, thankfully it seemed to have an independent energy source because it didn't blink out.

He grabbed the console and pulled himself to the bottom of the room, planning to kick off from the bottom when he spotted it. Could it be? It was one of Bebop's soda bottles, sitting next to something that was glowing softly under the water. If he poured it out and filled the bottom with just a little bit of water he could make a makeshift magnifying glass to read the scrawl with maybe.

He swam towards it and plucked it off the glowing panel, unable to believe his luck.

" _The water is a lot warmer over here than anywhere else_." He thought to himself as he poured out the soda. whatever was glowing must really be hot.

The glow started to intensify, it spat flames into the water. Really hot.

The intensified more and widened to reveal a large pair of pointy teeth.

DRAGON!

Donnie kicked off and soared away from the glow right before the dragon let out a beam of fire that started to simmer the water.

" _I need to get out of here before I turn into turtle soup_!" Donnie thought.

He made a break for the surface. The dragon shot up after him, It was a faster swimmer than him!

Knowing he couldn't outswim it he spun to face it. Planning to grab his bo and shove it into the dragon's mouth to keep it from getting its teeth on him he reached behind his back and groped around for the weapon that wasn't there.

His eye's widened and his breath nearly hitched as he realized he was unarmed.

The dragon shot at him, It's fanged jaw widening.

Donnie tried to think of something to do, his brain switch from thought to thought like a channel surfer who could only find infomercials and static. The dragon was upon him, he pulled into his shell. The dragon grabbed his shell with its mouth and-

And he was stuck.

The dragon had bitten off a bit more than it could chew it seems, Donnie was lodged in its mouth like a billiard ball swallowed by a college freshman on a dare.

It pushed at him with its tongue, sometimes getting its tongue down his head hole and jabbing the top of his head with the slimy appendage.

Damn turtle luck. That's the only thing that could take a simple task like finding a light and a magnifier and turn it into a Race-for-life against one of the ugliest creatures known to earth. Did the others get breaks this bad?

It reached over with its claws and tried to get a hold of him with its claws, but they kept scraping along his shell painfully.

Finally, it managed to get a hold of him and gave a mighty tug.

Donnie grit his teeth as his shell was pulled out of the dragon's mouth, the Dragon's teeth etched deep stinging scratches along the length of his shell.

The dragon dislodged him and flung him away.

He shot out of the water and unfurled himself in time to grab one of the large heavy wires protruding from the ceiling.

The dragon lurched out of the water like a giant crocodile.

Donnie screamed and swung himself this way and that, trying to avoid its jaws.

The dragon unfurled its wings, trying to gain air. It's soaked wings beat against the sides of the engine room, knocking the beast off balance and sending it back into the water.

Donnie was still dangling from the wiring by one hand. He tried to reach up with his other hand to grab something but couldn't reach. He reached into his weapons belt for a Kunai but came up short. Drat, the Foot had already taken his pocket contents, and that included all of his smoke bombs and throwing stars. He patted his belt hoping for something they missed when he felt something metal embedded in the back of his weapons sash. He tugged it off to examine it.

It was a Kraang-bot hand, The one that had grabbed him must have lost it when he tossed it to the whirlpool. The dragon got impatient and blew its fire into the pool to release some of its frustration.

The water began to boil. Filling the now very-cramped-feeling engine room with steam.

Steaming in his shell didn't seem much more appetizing than being boiled in it.

He looked at the wiring above him, taking stock of which wires led to where, this process was interrupted by the dragon lunging at him again. He pulled in his legs to keep out of its jaws and held the Kraang hand under him. The dragon scraped its teeth across it then bashed into the side of the engine room and fell back in.

He examined the now jagged hand and threw the jagged end at the wiring above him.

The jagged piece of metal sliced through the wires, Donnie held onto the short end and swung to the side of the engine room. The long end fell into the water and hit the dragon.

The dragon jerked in the water, convulsing and slamming the water with its wings.

Donnie cringed away, hoping fervently none of the electrified water would fly off in his direction.

After a moment the dragon fell limp and floated belly up in the water, temporarily stunned.

Donnie swung onto the dragon's belly and waited for it to float past the water bottle, so he could scooped it up, and drift over to the escape hatch.

He poured most of the water out of the bottle and looked through the bottleneck at the bottom.

Good thing he'd managed to learn a bit of Kraang language before.

The hatch opened and he crawled through into the hallway.

He was on his way out, He was weaponless and all by himself. His arms felt like they had been nearly tugged out of their socket, he hurt all over, the deep cuts all over his shell kept sending stabbing pains down his sides, and he had a few burns, but he was on his way out.

No more fighting. He decided. He couldn't manage another fight anyway. Ninja stealth is the name of the game from here on out. " _I'll stick to the shadows. And if I'm found... I'm lost._ "

(scene break)

Leo slid down the cold metal of the technodrome, Mikey following behind, the metal was even colder than he expected, the water soaking it might have something to do with that.

Everything was wet and slippery. That was something he'd have to keep in mind, it would make things more difficult if they were engaged by the enemy.

The other thing that caught his attention was the vertical nature of all the platforms, there was a complete lack of ladders and stairs, which made navigating more difficult. If Leo and his brother hadn't been ninja or at least Olympic jumpers they could have been stranded easily.

This obviously wasn't meant to leave space, everything seemed designed for floating occupants, not gravity bound ones.

Leo came to the bottom of the chute, landing on another platform, he stepped to the side and waited for Mikey to land beside him before looking down at what he had to travel through below.

The bottom of the room was submerged in water, It was like the ship had decided to abduct a chunk of the ocean. Did aliens do that? Guess those human conspiracy theorists were way off about the cows.

"Huh?" Mikey said aloud, hopping down onto a lower platform that was level with the top of the water. "I guess we had more common with those pink guys then I thought, think they're sea life too?"

A Kraang bot lurched out of the water, wrapping its hands around Mikey and pulling him into the water.

"Mikey!" Leo called, before sensing something above him, He glanced up just in time to see a mass of Kraang bots above him, clinging to the ceiling, they all let go at once, falling onto him and knocking him into the water.

He managed to inhale deeply before plunging into the water.

He elbowed the Kraang behind him in the face, making it lose control of its robot shell. He grabbed the Kraang and flung it at the others, knocking the air out of them. Knocking a marine animal into the water wasn't a smart move, but he wouldn't be surprised if the Kraang didn't actually know anything about the type of animal he was mutated from.

He tried to turn around in the water so he could look for Mikey when he caught sight of Fishface coming on fast.

Fishface opened his mouth to snap down on Leo's stomach. Leo put his hands on the top and bottom of Fishface's Jaw to keep the fish away from him. Fishface kept swimming forward, the water roared in Leo's ears as they flew backward.

Leo tried to Kick the fish but got his leg caught for his effort, Fishface swam into a wall, slamming Leo's shell against the metal painfully and pressing the air out of his stomach.

*Hiss* Karai flew into Fishfaces side and wrapped herself around him.

Leo started to swim up for air, he spotted Mikey tangled in a bundle of Kraan droids above him. He slashed several of them in half and sheathed his sword so he could grab Mikey's wrists and swim upward with him. They reached the surface and drew in a gasp of breath.

"Karai?" Leo asked, peering into the water.

Karai surfaced next to him.

"Karai!" Leo exclaimed, swimming over to hug her. "What are you doing here?"

"Want… Help." She managed.

"We'll get you help Karai, don't worry."

"No. Want… To… Help." She corrected.

Leo and Mikey looked at each other then back at Karai, they smiled.

(scene break)

Donnie stepped around the mass of coiled and wires. This room was a mess, it was like all of the wiring and ship guts that they couldn't fit into the walls or control rooms were stuffed in here.

"How am I going to find my way out of this spaceship when I can't even find my way out of this messy room?" He asked himself.

He glanced around a wall to see if he could spot a door out and saw Shredder kicking some rubble out of his way on the floor below. He backed away and flatted his carapace against the wall, heart pounding.

His palm began to sweat. "I need to get out of here." He thought to himself.

He turned his body away from the corner shuffling to the left but keeping his eye on on the corner in case Shredder came around the side of it.

Deciding that it would be a better idea to make a break for he looked away from the corner and sprinted back the way he came, running straight in front of the Shredder.

Donnie skidded to a halt three inches away from the older and gulped, cringing. Shredder looked down his nose at Donnie in disdain. Donnie entertained the thought of running away but only for a second, the image of Shredder stabbing his father in the back was still fresh in his mind and he had no doubt the man would do the same to him.

"Pitiful." Shredder said, "If you were Leonardo or the red one I'd kill you now, you don't seem to have the same will to dominate as they do." He said this as though this was a detestable moral failing.

" _He's going to kill me."_ Donnie thought, his mouth going dry and his sweaty palm shaking.

Shredder put a hand on his head and pushed him down so he fell one one knee then pressed his head down farther so his palm hit the ground and he was bowing.

" _I can't win this,_ " Donnie thought, even with his weapons he would be outmatched, it would take more than a smoke bomb to escape from this position and he didn't even have that. Shredder was going to kill him execution style.

"Still, you might be useful as an experiment, even if you aren't a worthy foe to celebrate vanquishing.

Shredder reached behind his back and pulled the time scepter out of the makeshift holster he tied to it.

Donnie saw his chance, If he could grab the time scepter he might be able to make it obey his command instead of Shredders.

He batted Shredder's hand away and in one swift motion surged forward to make a grab for the scepter.

Shredder punted him off the platform onto the floor below for this show of insolence.

Donnie gasped in pain as he hit the ground, but unwilling to let himself freeze, he turned onto his stomach and crawled under the coils knotted above him.

Shredder landed behind him and made a grab for Donnie's foot.

Donnie inhaled sharply as the other man grasped a handful of the brown fabric he'd wrapped around his foot, they both pulled, something had to give, it was the fabric, it shredded in the older man's hand.

Donnie scrabbled over to a metal panel that hadn't been properly screwed in.

Behind him Shredder used the time scepter on the metal knots, rusting them away in an attempt to shrink them into nothingness, had he been planning to test the time scepter by aging Donnie to death?

Donnie pulled the panel loose and crawled inside, he re-attached the loose platinum sheet and crawled into his shell, waiting.

" _Ok Donnie, the man that nearly killed your father three times is hunting you, don't move, don't even breath, you can live through this."_ He thought to himself.

Shredder slammed against the metallic interior of the techno-drome. Sending out an ear-shattering reverberation throughout the chamber Donnie was hiding in. It took every ounce of discipline he had not to gasp in shock and give away his position.

Did Shredder use his claws or the time scepter to hit the wall? He was getting really distressed about Shredder's complete disregard for the respect that should be given to any object that could warp the fabric of reality. His heart sped up until he started to fear that Shredder would be able to hear it attempting to beat itself out of Donnie's chest.

After what seemed like an eternity he sensed Shredder's presence move down the hall. He hugged his knees and let himself breath, almost hyperventilating. He willed his breathing rate to return to normal and fought back the urge to choke. " _You can do this Donnie, It's only a giant fortress full of enemies._ "

He tried to force himself to relax but he was in such a heightened state of terror that any reverberation he felt run through the drome nearly sent him leaping out of his skin.

While he would never wish for any of his brothers to be in his position he couldn't help but feel that Leo would fare much better in this situation. He tried to emulate the eldest turtle's fearlessness and clear his head.

Donnie squeezed himself through the vent until he found a loose metal panel and fell through.

He fell on his side and let out a cry of pain as another wave of agony ran freely through his aggravated cuts.

He rolled over and dug his fingers into a groove in the floor, dragging his body forward. He continued dragging himself across the floor until enough pain had left his body for him to stand up.

"What I would give for my Bo now." He said, it would be good to use as a walking stick, if not a weapon.

"But at least I got away, now all I have to escape and I'm home free." He rounded a corner.

"If I can just get through here without running into anybody else-" he found himself standing in front of Rocksteady.

Turtle luck. Tur-tle luck.

Donnie looked up at the monster right out in front of him. "Okay, I know you're thinking. You're thinking I should really thrash that guy, but I think that there is a really good reason for why you really should not do that, and I think you should hear it out before you take me."

Rocksteady leaned forward until his nose was 2 inches away from Donnie beak, "and what reason is that?"

Donnie opened his mouth to give a very clear rational reason why they shouldn't fight, but all that came out was a terrified scream. He fled down the hallway waving his hands and shrieking.

"Hey, get back here!" Rocksteady exclaimed before giving chase.

Donnie kept running until the hallway cut out for some reason. -Why weren't there any railings in this place?- And he pitched forward, falling into another river of water leftover from the tsunami.

He resurfaced and swam across fast, still screaming until he got to another hallway and clambered up onto that one. He prepared to made another getaway sprint when he heard an explosion that reverberated throughout the hallways of the drome.

" _What was that?_ " He wondered, maybe it was something he could use to escape, unlikely, but at this point, he was grasping at straws.

He walked along the length of the hallway, Tracing his fingers along the until he came to a door.

He poked his head through to see a large hole in the side of the drome.

He wandered over it to look outside of it, white flurries of snow falling on his beak, the nippy winter wind stinging his eyes. He looked down the side of the techno drome, if he had his climbing gloves with him he could use it to make his escape, but it was too high for that without them.

The sound of heavy footsteps reverberated through the metal hallway behind him, causing him to cringe, his eyes darted all around the room looking for something he could use defend himself with as Rocksteady entered the room. "There is no more place for running, you be coming quietly, Turtle."

Donnie searched through one more time before admitting defeat. Then sighed, "okay Rocksteady you got me, take me in." "Good turtle, now it's just-what?"

Rocksteady stepped out of the way as the grappling hook soared into the room through the hole and embedded itself in the far wall. "What is-"

"Woo hoo!"

Raphael swung into the room on the other end of the grappling gun, slamming both of his feet into Rocksteady's face as the gun reeled him past.

"Raph!" Donnie exclaimed.

He ran forward and tackled his older brother in a hug, causing his brother to stumble backwards a few steps.

He wanted to hold on forever and not let go, but his brother pushed him back by his shoulders, trying to get a good look at him, and he didn't like what he saw.

"You're _covered_ in cuts." he gave Donnie concerned look, "What did they do to you, little brother?"

Donnie smiled shyly, "Would you believe it was a dragon?"

They heard another explosion. "What the heck was that?" Don asked.

"I don't know, but we better go check it out, whenever it was our brothers might've been involved."

"Mikey and Leonardo are here?" Don asked.

"Yeah, they came here to look for you. April and Rennet too."

"We need to find them and get out of here, Shredder is running around in here and he's looking for me too."

"Then we better be fast."

The hallway led to a catwalk overlooking a large room. Under their catwalk was another catwalk and under that catwalk was two large vats of mutagen.

There was a metal gurney with straps besides the two vats, the walls of the room were covered in glass cages filled with mutant experiments. One large cage had a mutagen worm in it. This must be a lab.

There was another explosion, a large strip of metal tore away from the ceiling curling in toward itself. Like a playground slide. Rennet, April, bebop, and Tigerclaw all fell down the slide.

"April!" Donnie called as they fell past the catwalk.

The four falling fighters all managed to grab onto the second catwalk below. They quickly swung onto it and faced each other.

"You won't get rid of us that easily." April said.

"Oh? Then dodge this." Tigerclaw snapped, kicking Rennet off with catwalk.

"Rennet!" April screamed.

Rennet gasped at the sight of the glowing green ooze coming towards her, she turned her back to it, curling in on herself and clutching the time chapter close to her.

The time energy opened a portal beneath her. She fell into the gray before it closed, sending the teenage girl the fates knew where.

"This is bad. We needed Rennet to defeat the Shredder. And now she's gone." Donnie said.

"And it's about to get a lot worse."

Shredder stepped onto the catwalk across from Tigerclaw starting to approach April.

Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Karai ran (and slithered) into the room on the ground floor, followed by a small horde of shooting Kraang.

Mikey looked up and exclaimed, "Oh no, April!"

"Yeah, I like these odds. You sure don't want to give up girl? Three against one and all that?" Bebop asked.

"Surrender would be prudent." Tigerclaw added.

"Yeah? Well, I've got an act up my sleeve that I don't think any of you three can follow." " April said.

She jumped up onto the railing and held her arms out so her body formed a T, then she allowed herself to fall backward, off the catwalk and into the vat of Mutagen.

"She can't do that! Can she do that?" Bebop asked.

Leo tackled one of the Kraang flying around him and pointed its lasers at the other Kraang, forcing them to fly higher to get maneuvering room to dodge. Then he aimed the laser at the end of the catwalk shredder was on, blasting it away bit by bit.

Shredder snarled as the catwalk began to shift under his feet, he hadn't seen Timothy and could only guess at what would happen to him if he fell in the mutagen pool, but he wasn't keen on finding out, he grabbed one of the Kraang as they flew past him and ripped out the power core of its saucer before throwing it at the cage holding a large mutagen worm. Smashing the cage open and allowing the worm to escape.

The worm lunged at the Shredder and he responded by throwing the core in the worm's mouth.

The worm bit down on the volatile energy source, blowing its head off.

Shredder leaped onto the worm's back before it could fall over and used it as a runway to dash down to the ground level and grab Leo by the throat.

He flung Leo through a plane of glass into what Leo thought was an empty cage, but realized was actually some type of chute when shredder hit a button, opening up the floor below and sending Leo falling into the room below.

Karai threw herself down the chute after him.

Leo shot out the end of the chute and fell into a shallow pool ankle length deep.

At first, he thought it was more water then realized this wasn't water, it was too thick and sticky.

The lighting in the room didn't help him identify it though, the strange lights flooding into the room gave everything a sickly pink glow.

Raph charged, Shredder swiped his claws forward, intending to slash Raph's face open.

Raph pulled his head into his shell so Shredder went past him, Raph slammed his elbow into Shredder's stomach, trying to wind the man.

This only partially works on a man wearing armor, Shredder did double over for the briefest second, but recovered immediately and threw Raph away.

Donnie ducked and rolled under the scythe as his little brother knocked Tigerclaw in the face with the blunt top of his weapon.

" _What am I going to do_?" Donnie thought, _"I need to find a way to get rid of Shredder, wait, maybe I can… but I'll need to seal of the mutagen and get April out of the way."_

"April! I need you to get high." Donnie called.

"Why?" April asked.

"I've got an idea." Donnie said.

April started climbing the ladder and Donnie ran over to the control panel in front of the mutagen tanks.

He sealed the tops of them so he didn't have to worry about the mutagen getting mixed in when he enacted his plan.

Mikey!" He called behind him, "hold Shredder still."

Mikey threw his chain at Shredder attempting to wrap his chain around the older man.

Shredder turned around and held up his arm so the chain wrapped around that instead.

Donnie leaped at his back and grabbed the time scepter,

Shredder slashed the chain holding him in place and spun to grab the time scepter before Donnie could abscond with it.

Donnie gritted his teeth. "Tsunami." He hissed.

The time scepter glowed and the dangling ends stood up.

Water filled the room, pouring in from parts unknown.

Donnie held his breath and kept his grip on the time scepter, Shredder refused to let go.

April climbed higher to escape the rapids, and everyone else gripped the walls and held their breath.

Donnie and Shredder were picked off their feet and carried around the room by the cascades.

Donnie glared at Shredder defiantly.

" _You might be strong, your men too, but you can't outlast us turtles in the water, flee or perish._ " He dared internally.

Shredder stubbornly kept holding his breath and refusing to release his grip on the scepter.

They flew past a control panel and Shredder snaked out a hand to bang across it.

The hatch in the flush area Shredder had thrown Leo into opened, the water began to swirl into it, creating a small whirlpool.

"Oh no." Donnie thought as the two ninja got caught in the pull and were carried closer to the hole.

"Not again."

They spun around and around the drain.

Donnie kept his grip on the time scepter. The water raged around him and battered his abused body, aggravating his cuts even more. Shredder refused to release his grip on the wand.

They both concentrated, trying to will the wand to bend to their will.

It glowed, a Bo staff appeared in the water swirling around them and a sword appeared after it.

Donnie released his grip in one hand so he could snatch up the Bo. Shredder did the same, going for the sword.

They were flung out of the hatch, Donnie's gripped was wretched away from the scepter and he flew across the room, his abused body slamming painfully into a wall and then smashing through the surface of the water.

Donnie floated up on his back and lay still for a moment, feeling numb.

The water covered his ear holes so he couldn't hear anything, he tilted his chin up so he could look behind himself.

Shredder burst through the surface of the water, holding the time scepter.

Karai flung herself out of the water at him, he grabbed her wrists in one hand and spun her so he could wrapped her in a bear hug from behind, squeezing her painfully so she cried out.

Donnie flopped his hand around the surface of the water, somehow finding his way to his Bo staff and wrapping his fingers around it.

Leo burst out of the water, slamming to Shredder and dragging him back into the water.

Donnie managed to turn onto his front and started waving his arms through the water, dragging himself toward the wall.

Shredder floundered around in the water, surfacing and falling back into the water as he struggled with his two opponents.

Donnie reached the wall and attached the Bo to his weapon belt before ascending.

He clawed his way up the wall to the ceiling and pulled the Bo out, sliding it over an metal coils that ran across the ceiling.

Donnie curled his fingers around the Bo, each hand on either side of the coils and pushed off. Letting gravity carry him across the room, sliding his Bo over the coils.

He let go of the Bo midway and fell, landing on Shredder's back.

Donnie reached around grabbed the time scepter causing it to glow.

A portal opened up above them dropping Rennet into the pool with them.

Shredder snarled and concentrated. The scepter glowed again and a blast of energy blasted all of his opponents away from him. And cleared the water out of the room.

Leo, Karai, and Donnie all bounced across the floor painfully.

Shredder knew who the greatest threat was and wasn't willing to let her get a move in, he aimed his scepter at Rennet before she could get her bearing and blasted her, knocking her away from her scepter.

Shredder made a break for the time scepter, Leo did the same, Karai went for Shredder, jaws wide and fangs bared.

Leo rolled across the ground snatching up the time scepter and pointing it at Shredder.

Shredder raised his scepter and pointed it at Leo.

They both blasted as much time energy as they could stand at each other.

Karai got in the middle of their attacks and was swallowed by the time energy.

Leo and Shredder both gasped, before renewing their determination and pouring out every ounce of will they could manage, trying to use their scepter to bend the time energy to their will.

The energy abated, leaving Karai kneeling on the floor in her human form.

"Karai?" Leo asked.

"Daughter?" Shredder asked.

Donnie forced an eyelid open and glanced at his sister. "Are you with us Karai?" He wondered.

"You..." Karai started to say, "TRAITOR!" She leaped at Shredder and kicked him in the head.

"There is nothing in this world the disgusts me as much as the thought that some where out there in Japan is a fridge with my macaroni art on it saying 'I love you shredder' on it, this will shame me until I die and it's all because of you, you lying-"

"Karai!" Leo exclaimed, forgetting himself and dropping the time scepter to rush to Karai's aid.

Rennet shook herself and noticed the time scepters both lying on the floor.

She darted forward and grabbed her scepter, taking aim she shot another blast of time energy at the fake, reducing it to dust.

"Ok, one more adjustment." She raised her scepter high.

The Technodrome dissipated beneath their feet.

The occupants began to fall, Rennet used the scepter to surround her friends with anti-gravitons to keep them from falling.

The Foot fell, the Kraang continued to float around trying to shoot them.

Raph dispatched them with his Kunia, chasing the survivors away.

Rennet floated them all close to her.

"Looks like we've won the day, How about a change of scenery?"

One second later found them all standing in the living room of the lair. Casey looked around, seeming disappointing. "Ah, what happened to Rex?"

"I sent him back home, don't worry, he'll be happy there, I hope you guys are all happy here too."

"Is... Is it over?" Donnie asked.

"Yeah, it's over." Rennet said.

"Oh, goody." Donnie managed before fainting.

(Scene break)

"Donnie, Donnie."

Donnie opened his eyes. "What?"

"Hey, you're awake." Leo said. Raph and Mikey all crowded around him.

"What-" Donnie spotted Master Splinter sleeping in a chair across the room.

"What happened?"

"Rennet fixed everything, Shredder ran away to lick his wounds, Karai went back to her lair, and you fainted."

"Yeah, had us kind of worried there for a bit, little brother." Raph said, cracking a smile.

"Fixed everything… Does that mean?"

"We remember everything dude," Mikey chirped happily," Kraang and pizza gonzola's and Rennet-"

"And you too, little brother." Leo said affectingly. "I'll go make you some cocoa."

Donnie chuckled as his brother fought over who would get the second mug.

"I'm home," He thought, closing his eyes and relaxing back into his chair, "I'm finally home."

End Chapter

That was kind of a sudden ending, but then, this chapter is 17 pages long and the longest in the story so it was kind od dragging any way, I didn't really have a good way for this to end, which is why there's a slight downturn in quality.

If you thought this story was good, maybe consider going on to tv tropes and idioms and adding this fic to the rec pages. Please?

Well, it was worth asking anyway, I hope you enjoyed this fic.

What was your favorite part and why? Tell me in the comments.


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